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THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 



THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

A GUIDE TO ITS STUDY AND 
APPRECIATION 

BY 

KOBERT KILBURN ROOT 

Professor of English in Princeton University 

REVISED EDITION 




HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO 



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COPYRIGHT, 1922, 

By Robert Kilburn Root 

Copyright, 1906, by Robert Kilburn Root 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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i 



PREFACE 

During the last twenty years, the poetry of Chaucer 
has been attaining an ever increasing popularity. Not 
only in our colleges and universities, but among the 
lovers of good literature at large, the discovery has 
been made that the difficulty of Chaucer's language is 
by no means so great as at first appears, and that what- 
ever difficulty there may be is richly compensated by 
the delights which his poetry has to offer. Meanwhile 
the scholars of Europe and America have been busy 
at the task of explaining what needs explanation, of 
investigating the problems of Chaucer's sources, and 
of determining the order in which his works were com- 
posed. It is the purpose of the present volume to ren- 
der accessible to readers of Chaucer the fruits of these 
investigations, in so far as they conduce to a fuller 
appreciation of the poet and his work. For the benefit 
of those who wish to go more deeply into the subject, 
rather copious bibliographical references are given in 
the footnotes. Of Chaucer's biography we know little 
that is really significant ; and that little has been fre- 
quently retold. It has, therefore, seemed better to omit 
any connected account of Chaucer's life, and to give in 
the discussion of the individual poems such biographi- 
cal details as serve to illuminate them. 

From the very nature of his task, the author's obli- 
gations are manifold. From Tyrwhitt down, there is 
hardly a Chaucerian scholar by whose labors he has 
not profited, as a glance at the footnotes will show. 
To Professor Ten Brink, to Professor Louusbury, to 



vi PREFACE 

Professor Skeat, and to Dr. Furnivall and his collabo- 
rators in the work of the Chaucer Society, his debt is 
particularly large. In making quotations and citations, 
Skeat's Student's Chaucer has been used ; and the 
order in which the several works of the poet are taken 
up is, with one slight exception, that in which they are 
there printed. This has seemed, on the whole, the most 
convenient order ; but the reader may take the chap- 
ters in any order he pleases. To my friends. Professor 
Albert S. Cook of Yale University and Professor 
Charles G. Osgood of Princeton University, I am 
indebted for much valuable criticism. 

K. K. R. 

Princeton University 
May 25, 1906. 



PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION 

It is now fifteen years since this book was first published, 
and these years have been extraordinarily fruitful of 
Chaucerian stud3^ Important contributions have been 
made to our knowledge of Chaucer and of his relations 
to the literature and prevalent ideas of the Middle Ages, 
contributions which, it is pleasant to note, have been in 
large measure the work of American scholars. To Profes- 
sor Kittredge and Professor Lowes of Harvard and to 
Professor Tatlock of Leland Stanford the debt of Chau- 
cer-lovers is, and will remain, a large one. In some cases 
this new knowledge has led to a considerable revision of 
our earlier understanding of the essential purport of 
Chaucer's poetry. This is particularly true of the work 
of Chaucer's middle period — the House of Fame, Troi- 
lus, the Legend of Good Women, the translation of Boe- 
thius. 

It was the original purpose of this book to render ac- 
cessible to readers of Chaucer the fruits of scholarly 
investigation in so far as they conduce to a fuller ap- 
preciation of the poet and his work. If it is to continue 
to render this service, a thorough revision is now neces- 
sary. Such a revision is presented in the present volume. 
Where the new information is so fundamental that it 
essentially alters an earlier interpretation of the facts, 
the passage concerned has been rewritten, and new pages 
substituted for the old; where it is rather in the nature 
of additional light, which clarifies but does not alter, 
the new information is given in an appendix of 'Notes 
and Revisions' at the end of the volume. Chapters VI 



viii PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION 

and VII, which deal with Troilus and the House of Fame, 
have been rewritten in their entirety. In addition, the 
pages numbered ix, x, 18, 40, 84, 85, 140-144, 167, 168, 
184, 238-240, 291, 292 have been rewritten and substi- 
tuted for the original pages. These changes have made 
necessary a new index; but the pagination of the volume 
has been so little disturbed that most references to the 
original edition will apply also to this. More than one 
quarter of the present volume is, therefore, new. It is 
hoped that with these revisions the book may continue 
to fill the place which has been accorded to it in the past. 
With it and with Skeat's Student's Chaucer, or better 
with Professor F. N. Robinson's edition soon to be pub- 
lished in the Cambridge Poets Series, the student or the 
general reader will have in his possession all that is essen- 
tial to an understanding and appreciation of Chaucer's 
poetry. 

It is a pleasure to record my gratitude to my friend, 
Professor Gordon Hall Gerould, for his help and counsel 
in the preparation of this edition, 

R. K. R. 
Princeton University, 
October, 1921. 



■WOEK3 



A CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY OF 
CHAUCER'S LIFE AND WORKS 

(The few significant facts of Chaucer's life given below rest on documen- 
tary evidence, and may, therefore, be rc^^arded as certain. The chronology 
of his works is far from certain; but the dates here given may be regarded as 
approximately correct.) 

LIFE 

1340 Chaucer horn in London. 
His fiithor, John Chaucer, 
was a vintner, and was in 
some way conneoted with 
the court of lOdward III. 
(The date, 1.340, is conjec- 
tural.) 

1357 Attached, as a page (?), to 
the household of Elizabeth, 
Duchess of Clarence. 

1359 Serves in the English army 
in France, and taken pris- 
oner by the French. 

13G7 Granted a life pension for 
his services as valet in the 
V king's household. 

1372-73 First diplomatic mission 

to Italy. 
1374 Appointed Comptroller of 

the customs and subsidy of 

wools, skins, and leather for 

the port of London. (We 

know that in this year the 

poet was already married.) 

Leased a dwelling over the 

gate of Aldgate in London. 

1377 Diplomatic missions in 
Flanders and France. 

1378 Second journey to Italy in 
the Idng's service. 

1382 Appointed Comptroller of 
the petty customs. (This 
office he held in addition to 
his earlier office in the cus- 
toms.) 



To this general period may be 
assigned the Romaunt of the 
Rose, and the ' baladcs, roundels, 
virelayes,' referred to in the Pro- 
logue to the Legend of Good Wo- 

[ 771671, 



1369 The Book of the Duchess. 



To the period from 1374 to 1379 
may probably be assigned the 
House of Fame, and the poems 
later utilized as the Monk's Tale 
and the Second Null's Tale of 
St. Cecilia. 



In the six years from 1380 to 
1385 we may place the transla- 
tion of Boethius, Troilus and 
Criseyde (not earlier than 1381), 
the Parliament of Fowls (1.382?) 
and the story of Palamon and 
Arcite, known as the KmghVs 
, Tale, (shortly before 1385?). 



X 



A CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY 



1385 Granted permission to exer- 
cise his office as comptroller 
through a permanent dep- 
uty. 

Appointed Justice of Peace 
for the county of Kent. 

1386 Member of Parliament for 
Kent. Gives up his London 
house (and resides at Green- 
wich?). Deprived (by a hos- 
tile faction at court?) of his 
offices in the customs. 

1387 Death of Chaucer's wife. 

1389 Appointed Clerk of the 
King's Works at Westmin- 
ster. 

1390 Clerk of the King's Works 
at Windsor, and member of 
a commission to repair the 
banks of the Thames be- 
tween Woolwich and Green- 
wich. 



1394 Granted an additional pen- 
sion of 20 I. a year. (The 
poet seems, however, to 
have been in financial diffi- 
culty.) 

1399 On the accession of Henry 
IV, Chaucer's pension again 
increased. He leases a 
house in Westminster. 

1400 Chaucer's death. 



1385-86 The Legend of Good TFo- 



^ Soon after 1386 were begun the 
Canterbury Tales, on which the 
pof t probably worked intermit- 
tenily till his death. Groups D, 
E, and F, which contain the 
discussion of marriage, seem to 
have been written later than 
1393. 

1391 Treatise on the Astrolabe. 
1393 Envoy to Scogan. 

1394-95 Revised form ('A' text) 
of Prologue to Legend of 
Good Women. 

1396-97 Envoy to Bukton. 
1399 To his Empty PuraA 



CONTENTS 

^ I. Chaucer's England 1 

II. Chaucer . 14 

III. The Romaunt of the Rose 45 

IV, The Minor Poems 57 

V. BOETHIUS AND THE ASTROLABE . . , .80 

:'- VI. Troilus and Criseyde 87 

r VII. The House of Fame 128 

VIII. The Legend of Good Women ► . . . 135 

IX. The Canterbury Tales, Group A . . . 151 

X. The Canterbury Tales, Group B . . . 181 

XI. The Canterbury Tales, Groups C and D . 219 

XII. The Canterbury Tales, Groups E, F, G, H, I . 253 

Appfjidix. The Study of Chaucer . . . 291 

Notes and Revisions 294 

Index 301 



THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

CHAPTER I 

CHAUCER'S ENGLAND 

It is five hundred years and more since Geoffrey 
Cliaucer was 'nayled in his cheste,' and laid in what 
is now known as the Poets' Corner of Westminster 
Abbey. Many things have happened since that day : 
a new half-world has been discovered ; mighty nations 
have had their birth ; there have been wars and revolu- 
tions ; the great world of science has been opened up, 
changing deeply our thoughts and beliefs, altering rad- 
ically the conditions of our industrial and social life ; 
one poet greater than Chaucer has arisen to grace our 
English tongue. Chaucer would have been intensely 
interested in all these things, could he have known 
them ; but for him they did not exist. If we are to 
enter into the spirit of his poetry, we must forget for 
the time being the present-day world, and all that has 
happened in five hundred years, and live again in a 
day long dead. We must, with William Morris, — 

Forget six counties overhung with smoke, 
Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke, 
Forget the spreading of the hideous town ; 
Think rather of the pack-horse on the down, 
And dream of London, small, and white, and clean, 
The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green. 

When this leap into the dark backward and abysm 
of time has been accomplished, many of the comforts 



2 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

and luxuries of modern life will be found missing : 
houses are less comfortable ; traveling is a slow and 
dangerous process ; there are no newspapers, no tele- 
phones, no tea, coffee, or tobacco. Yet I fancy that 
these things are not so indispensable as our modern 
world thinks. For those of artistic tastes there is rich 
compensation in the external beauty of the life around. 
Nearly all the buildings of modern London which are 
really works of art were standing in Chaucer's day ; 
many buildings of equal beauty were standing then 
which have since perished. In place of the dingy, 
ugly, monotonous buildings which now line the streets 
of London town, stood picturesque houses of half-tim- 
ber, decorated in bright colors. The throngs of people 
passing through the streets must have been a constant 
source of interest and pleasure ; men did not then try 
to efface themselves by sober suits of black or gray. 
My lord passes by resplendent in bright colored silks 
and velvets, his retainers clothed in their distinguish- 
ing livery ; every trade has its peculiar costume. There 
are processions and pageants, with banners and waving 
plumes. Inside the houses one finds quaintly carved 
furniture and splendid pictured tapestries. There is 
a darker side to this picture, which we must also see 
before we are done ; but on the surface it is a gay and 
beautiful life that we have entered. This is indeed 
' merry England.' 

There are many intellectual interests as well. The 
right of the people to govern themselves in Parliament 
is being fought out. The English Church is trying to 
limit the usurpations of the papal power ; Wiclif and 
his poor preachers are sowing the seeds of the English 
Reformation. English commerce is extending itself. 
There is exciting news of the war with France. 

Interesting from many varied aspects, the fourteenth 



CHAUCER'S ENGLAND 3 

century is of particular significance to the student of 
literature and culture, because in it the movement of 
the Renaissance first assumed definite form, and our 
modern world began. But if the modern world had 
begun to assert itself, the mediaeval world had by no 
means passed away. Side by side they stood, the old 
and the new, essentially hostile to each other, yet 
blended and intermingled through the whole range of 
society, often in most incongruous fashion. Because 
of their coexistence it is easy to compare and contrast 
them. 

Any attempt at an inclusive definition of mediaeval- 
ism and of the Renaissance is a perilous, perhaps an 
impossible, undertaking ; but it is not so difficult to 
differentiate the two in their main characteristics and 
tendencies, always remembering that we have to do not 
so much with two periods of histoiy as with two oppos- 
ing attitudes of mind, two habits of thought, which 
have always existed side by side, with now one, now the 
other, in the ascendant. ' The fundamental distinction, 
I think, lies in the fact that the mediaeval mind has its 
gaze fixed primarily on the spiritual and abstract, that 
of the Renaissance on the sensuous and concrete. ' Me- 
diaevalism proclaims that the eternal things of the spirit 
are alone worth while ; the Renaissance declares that 
a man's life consists, if not in the abundance of the 
things he possesses, at any rate in the abundance and 
variety of the sensations he enjoys.' Though it is a char- 
acteristic of the greatest minds that they belong to no 
party, Dante and Shakespeare may be taken to repre- 
sent, in their dominant tendencies, the two habits of 
thought. In their power of poetic insight and obser- 
vation the two poets are nearly equal ; but Dante, 
following the natural bent of his spirit, portrayed the 
world in terms *... the abstract, through the language of 



4 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

symbols ; his great poem is a vision, and the person- 
ages of his drama are disembodied souls dwelling in a 
realm of spirit ; while Shakespeare shows us men and 
women as concrete individuals, living and moving in an 
actual, material world. 

As a direct result of this basic distinction, we pass 
to another which is of almost equal significance. In its 
dealings with society and with humanity in general, 
the mediaeval tends towards communism, the lienais- 
sance towards individualism ; for the individual is a 
concrete fact, the community is an abstract ideal. To 
the mediaeval mind, man is a member of a great spir- 
itual family, the body of Christ, the Church catholic 
and universal. His true happiness, temporal and eter- 
nal, is inseparable from the welfare of humanity as a 
whole. ' For none of us liveth to himself, and no man 
dieth to himself.' Thus Dante, in contrasting spiritual 
and material benefits, explains that with material things 
the larger the number who share in a benefit, the 
smaller is the share of each ; while with spiritual bless- 
ings, in particular the joys of Paradise, the larger the 
number of souls who share, the greater is the portion 
of each. To the mind of the Renaissance, then, bent on 
the sensuous and material, the individual man, his per- 
sonal strivings and accomplishment, becomes the main 
interest. We have the thirst for personal fame, as 
exemplified in the vanity of a Petrarch, replacing the 
anonymous zeal of the cathedral-builders. We have 
the national tendency, the idea of patriotism, as opposed 
to the mediaeval conception of a united Christendom, 
a Holy Roman Empire. We have a splitting up of the 
social body into small groups of individuals, but slightly 
interested in one another's welfare. And as the con- 
sciousness of the whole community begins to fade, art 
and literature become limited in their appeal, no longer 



CHAUCER'S ENGLAND 5 

s]ioaklnf;' to the whole people, but becoming the exclu- 
sive possc'ssion of the educated favored classes, a tend- 
eucy which is clearly evident in Petrarch's scorn for 
compositions in the vernacular. 

In the realm of thought, a precisely similar develop- 
ment takes place j' the age of faith gives way to the age 
of reason. 'Faith is the evidence of things not seen,' 
that is, of the invisible world, the spiritual. Reason, 
of necessity, confines itself mainly to things which can 
be seen and handled; in a word, to the sensuous and 
material. Or, again, to relate this development to 
that suggested in the preceding paragraph, faith, or 
authority, rests on a communistic basis. A belief in the 
benevolence of God, or in the immortality of the soul, is 
based, ajiart from any supernatural revelation, on the 
universality of man's instinct that these facts are so. 
This universal instinct gains definlteness in the body 
of dogma held and taught consistently by the Church, 
an essentially communistic organization. According to 
the mediaeval idea, the individual man has literally no 
right to think for himself ; the right of private judg- 
ment, which lies at the very foundation of Protestant- 
ism, is nothing but a corollary of the individualism of 
the Renaissance. 

In the domain of religion and conduct this ' right 
of private judguient' has had a curious twofold devel- 
opment. Among the more austere races of the north 
it gave rise to the Protestant Reformation, and, car- 
ried out to its logical conclusion, to that 'Protestantism 
of the Protestant religion ' which we call Puritanism. 
Protestantism is essentially the religion of the individ- 
ual. This may be proved first of all by its tendency 
to break up into sects ; it is in its very nature centri- 
fugal. The Protestant, again, is largely concerned with 
what he calls the salvation of his own soul, and in the 



6 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

process of achieving this he feels no need of priestly 
mediation ; he insists, rather, on his direct and personal 
relation to the Deity. It is individualism in religion. 
The Protestant proceeds to create for himself, and with 
delightful inconsistency attempts to force upon oth- 
ers, a moral code of his own, harsh and unlovely, of 
which the Puritan observance of the Sabbath is a good 
example. At the opposite extreme from Puritanism is 
the other development of the Renaissance spirit, most 
conspicuous among the more passionate peoples of the 
south, in which men used their right of private judg- 
ment to overthrow all religion and morality. Morality 
conveniently divides itself into duty towards God and 
duty towards one's neighbor. If one doubts the exist- 
ence of God, he disposes easily of one half of his duty ; 
if he exalts his individual well-being at the expense of 
the common good of society, his duty towards his neigh- 
bor troubles him but little. And so we find in the 
Italian Renaissance a strong tendency towards irreligion 
and immorality, which may express itself in the moral 
laxity and religious indifference of a Boccaccio, or in the 
diabolic malignity of a Caesar Borgia or a Catherine de 
Medici. 

If, now, we try to balance up the profit and loss to civ- 
ilization and culture which have ensued on the triumph 
of that Renaissance spirit, which is still dominant at 
the present day, we shall find the account acom])licated 
one. To the heightened interest in material and sen- 
suous things, and to the activity of the individual mind, 
we owe, of course, the whole of onr modern science ; to 
the same causes we owe a great part of our noblest 
literature and art, our Michael Angelo and our Shake- 
speare. This is no mean debt. Yet we must remem- 
ber that this very art which we prize is a possession of 
only the few ; the ' plain man ' has no portion in it. Of 



CHAUCER'S ENGLAND 7 

what sort are the books and pictures which we produce 
for liini? Art has been divorced from daily life. If we 
have greater poems and finer pictures than the Mitldle 
Ages knew, what of our carpets, our hangings, our fur- 
niture, our buildings, the dishes from which we eat? 
Then, too, we have to charge up against the Renais- 
sance our complexity of life, our unsettled doubts, our 
ambitions and discontents. And, lastly, there is the 
hideous fact that our boasted civilization is largely 
a civilization of materialism, of selfishness and legal- 
ized greed. After studying the ])ast and studying the 
present, we must strive to see both the benefits and 
the limitations which these two great world-tendencies 
have to offer, and, holding narrowly to neither, must so 
adjust and balance the two that we may attain to that 
golden mean which shall usher in the golden world. 

In the light of these distinctions between mediaevalism 
and the Renaissance, it will be well to pass in hasty 
review the great movements of the fourteenth century, 
political, sociid, religious, and literary, in order to see 
more clearly in what sort of a world Chaucer lived 
and worked. 

Politically, tlie most significant movement, in Eng- 
land at least, is the trend towards national consciousness. 
Henry II, on his accession to the throne of England 
in 1154, controlled more than half of what is now 
France. Normandy he inherited from the Conqueror, 
Anjou from his father, Geoffrey; Aquitaine was his 
tiirough the right of Eleanor his queen. Normandy and 
Anjou had been lost in the reign of King John (1199— 
1216) ; but Aquitaine was still a possession of the 
English crown when Edward III came to the throne 
in 1327. The national tendency, asserting itself in 
France, led the French king to the endeavor to bring 
all Frenchmen under his own control; and this was 



8 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

the ultimate cause of the Hundred Years' War, which 
begfan in 1337. The long; continued war served to 
strengthen immeasurably in each country the bud- 
ding instinct of patriotism. Men began to feel that 
they were Englishmen or Frenchmen; and the idea 
of a Holy Roman Empire faded gradually from their 
thoughts. 

The battle of Crecy (1846) and of Poitiers (1356) 
had not only fanned the flame of patriotism, but, won 
as they were by the archery of English yeomen, they 
increased immensely the importance of the middle 
classes, and hastened the fall of feudalism. With this 
increased importance of the commoners went a corre- 
sponding increase in the power of Parliament, which 
reached its flood tide in the ' Good Parliament ' of 1376. 
It is in this period that we first find clearly asserted 
the right of Parliament to vote taxes, on which as a 
corner-stone has since been built the edifice of English 
libei'ty. 

This democratic tendency in English politics is even 
more plainly marked in the social and industrial de- 
velopment of the fourteenth century. With the rapid 
growth of commerce and manufacture, and the conse- 
quently increased importance of the towns, there arose 
a large and prosperous bourgeois class, which, being 
as it was entirely without the pale of the feudal sys- 
tem, hastened its disintegration. For a discontented 
serf could become a freeman by establishing a legal 
residence in one of the towns ; and the vassal of higher 
station found himself overtopped in wealth, and conse- 
quently in influence, by the prosperous burgher. The 
emanci})ation of the laboring class from the bonds of 
serfdom was furthered by the great plague which swept 
over England, as over the rest of Europe, in 1348 and 
1349. With half the population wiped out, the landown- 



CHAUCER'S ENGLAND 9 

ers fouiul themselves with only half the former supply 
of labor, and onl}' half the demand for their products. 
The price of labor rose, and the price of bread fell. 
The old feudal obligation of the serf to labor a certain 
number of days on his master's land had already, in 
lar«;e measure, been commuted into a money rent, and 
the laborers were not slow to take advantage of the 
opi)ortunity to demand higher wages for their labor. 
The attempts to control the price of labor by legislation 
had little effect save to irritate the laborers, an irrita- 
tion which reached its climax in the peasants' revolt of 
1381. This revolt, suppressed by the courage and good 
judgment of the boy king, Richard II, though barren 
of any direct and immediate results, exerted a lasting 
influence on the temper of the lower classes, fostering 
in them a spirit of independence which made them 
no longer a negligible quantity in the life of the nation. 
They ceased to be merely a part of the social organism, 
and became, with their betters, individuals conscious of 
their individuality. 

The new-born spirit of nationality, which was per- 
vading all of English life, found striking expression 
in the relations of England with the Papacy. Eng- 
land had been formerly, of all nations, most loyal in 
its allegiance to the Pope ; but when in 1309 the seat 
of the Papacy was removed to Avignon, and the holy 
father himself became a creature of the French king, 
loyalty to the Pope came into conflict with hatred of 
France, and the new sentiment of national patriotism 
])roved the stronger. Though the popes of the 'Baby- 
lonian captivity ' seem not to have been wicked men= 
they were, at any rate, weak men ; and the ]>apal court 
became a centre of luxury and vice. To support this 
luxury it became necessary to sell the Church's pre- 
ferment; and England, where the Church owned in 



10 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

landed property alone more than one third of the soil 
of the realm, and received in dues and offerings an 
income amounting to twice the king's revenue, was 
a particularly rich field for papal simony. When for- 
eigners, French and Italian, were preferred to the rich- 
est livings in England, and proceeded to spend their 
incomes abroad, the national pride, if not the national 
conscience, was aroused ; and when a French pope, as 
the last court of appeal in matters of the canon law, 
set aside the decisions of English courts, the injury 
to English pride was still deeper. In 1351 was passed 
the Statute of Provisors, which aimed to stop the first 
of these abuses, and two years later the Statute of 
Prwrnunire was directed against the second. 

This anti-papal agitation, though purely political in 
character, could not fail to shake also the religious 
authority of the Clnuch. A pope who was a French- 
man, and therefore an enemy of England, could not 
command the full religious loyalty of Englishmen, 
especially wdien his court was notorious for its extrav- 
agance and profligacy. Not unnaturally the corru]ition 
at the head spread through the whole body ; and we 
are unfortunately compelled to believe that the picture 
of clerical avarice drawn by Chaucer and his contem- 
poraries is but little exaggerated. Though the Church 
has always taught that the unworthiness of the minis- 
ter does not vitiate the efficacy of his spiritual minis- 
trations, it was inevitable that even the untutored mind 
should question the value of an absolution bought with 
a price fi"om a grasping and unscrupulous priest, and 
that questioning this, it should question further. If 
this was not enough, what must have been the conster- 
nation of the devout when, in 1378, the great schism 
of the west began, and Europe beheld two rival popes, 
each hurling anathemas at the other and at the other's 



CHAUCER'S ENGLAND 11 

supporters ! Whichever pope you recognized, you 
were excommunioated by the other ; and how was one 
to tell ? England, of course, gave official recognition 
to Urban VI, the Pope of Kome, while France recog- 
nized Clement VII at Avignon ; but the prestige of 
the papal name, and the authority of the Church as a 
whole, received a crushing blow. The more worldly, 
like Chaucer, laughed at the whole thing ; the more 
devout either bewailed impotently, like Gower and 
Langland, the corruption they could not cure, or were 
driven, like Wiclif, into an open revolt, which was to 
be the precursor of the Protestant Reformation. 

The corruption in the Church and its attendant 
moral laxity led to corruption in the whole social body. 
' If gold rust, what shall iron do ? ' Chaucer's Pro- 
logue shows us a world in which avarice and deceit 
are all but universal, and the Prologue to the Vision 
of Piers Plowman bears witness only less vigorously 
to the same facts. The world, as Langland sees it, is 
indeed a ' fair field ; ' but the laborers are unworthy. 
His men are wandering in a maze, and everything is 
going wrong. Here arc men at the })low, working hard, 
playing but seldom. What is the result of their work ? 
They are winning what wasters destroy with gluttony. 
Pilgrims and palmers go on their journeys ; and with 
what result ? They have leave to lie all the rest of their 
lives. Friars, whose business it is to preach the gospel, 
gloze it to their own profit. Parsons and parish priests 
are forsaking their cliarges to go up to London and 
sing in chantries at Paul's. Bishops neglect their spir- 
itual duties to take office under the King and count his 
silver. Gower, too, in the Prologue to his Confessio 
Amantis, reviews the condition of Church and State, 
and, less vigorously but no less clearly, portrays the 
same state of thincrs : — 



12 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Lo, thus tobroke is Cristes folde, 
Wherof the tlock withoiito guide 
Devoured is on every side, 
In laeke of hem that hen unware 
Schepherdes, whiche her wit beware 
Upon the world in other halve. 
The sharpe pricke instede of salve 
Thei usen now, wherof the hele 
Thei hurte of that they scholden liele ; 
And what schep that is full of wnlic, 
Upon bis back, thei toose and puUe. 

But if the world of fourteenth-century England was 
sadly out of joint, it was far from being stagnant. In 
its intellectual ferment the age had much the same 
character as the age of great Elizabeth. There was the 
same glow of patriotism and national consciousness 
consequent upon a series of brilliant victories against a 
foreign foe ; there was the same spirit of revolt against 
a foreign church ; and, though the forms of mediseval- 
ism still survived, there was at work the same leaven 
of new ideas and of a new conception of life, reinforced 
by a new interest in the works of classical antiquity, 
coming over-seas from Italy ; literature and art was 
breaking away from the conventional, and, under the 
influence of new models, was drinking again at the 
fountain-head of nature. For such periods of restless- 
ness and change have often given birth to great crea- 
tive literature. 

Among a throng of lesser writers who contributed 
to the literature of fourteenth-century England, five 
stand out pi-eeminent. There is the nameless author 
of Sir Gaicayne and the Pearly who, thoroughly medi- 
aeval in his sympathies, infused new life into the old 
fox-ms of the romance and the vision. There is Lang- 
land, who, though a mediaeval in his habits of thought, 
had an independence of judgment, a vigor of expression, 



CHAUCER'S ENGLAND 13 

and a strong- tinge of democracy, even of socialism, 
witlial, wliioh are essentially modern. There is Gower, 
at whom it is the fashion nowadays to langh as ponder- 
ous and dull, but who lias, nevertheless, a command of 
language, a mastery of metre, above all a faculty of 
simple, straightforwai'd story-telling, which are far from 
contemptible, and which make his Confesslo Amantis, 
when taken in small doses, at times really charming. 
There is the vigorous prose of Wiclif in his sermons 
and in his translation of the Bible, which is informed 
with the spirit of modern Protestantism, though tem- 
pered, to be sure, with some of the sweetness of medi- 
seval Catholicism. If none of these is an author of the 
first importance, it is none the less true that nearly two 
hundred yeai"s were to elapse before any other English 
anthors should arise to equal any one of them. Finally, 
there is Chaucer, the most perfect exponent of his age, 
who blended in himself both the old and the new, the 
mediaeval and the modern, who not only represents his 
age, but, transcending its limitations, has become one 
of the foremost English poets for ail time. 



CHAPTER II 

CHAUCER 

If the critic is to pass beyond the study of individual 
poems, and seek after a comprehensive estimate of a 
poet's whole vvoik, or if he would wring from a series 
of writings the secret of the writer's soul, and strive to 
learn what manner of man he was and by what stages 
he became what he became, it is a question of the 
first imj)ortance to discover in what oi'der his works 
were composed, and to determine, whenever possible, at 
least an approximate date for the composition of each. 
In the case of more modern authors, in general of those 
who lived after the invention of printing, the problem 
is usually solved by a mere inspection of the dates on 
the title-pages or in the prefaces of their volumes; but 
with authors like Shakespeare, who avoided publication 
by printing, and still more with authors like Chaucer, 
who never heard of the printing-press, the problem is 
more serious. The investigator must, as in any similar 
historical inquiry, collect and sift all the obtainable 
evidence of whatever sort. At times the evidence will 
consist of references in other books to the work in 
question ; sometimes of allusions in the work itself 
to historical events of known date ; oftener, and evi- 
dence of this third sort is least conclusive, and must 
be used with greatest caution, the argviment must be 
based on the aesthetic qualities of the work itself, on 
metre, style, and general handling of the theme, which 
may indicate youth or maturity or decline of the j)oet's 
power. 



CHAUCER 15 

Foi* a few of Chaucer's writings, as, for example, 
tlie Booh of the Duchess, the Parliament of Fmds, the 
Legend of Good Women, it is possible to assign aj)prox- 
iniate dates with a good deal of certainty. From the list 
of his own works given by Chaucer in the Prologue to 
the Legend of Good Tl'bmen, we learn that the writings 
there mentioned were composed at some time earlier 
tiian the Legend. For the rest we are forced to piece 
together everj^ available shred of evidence, and construct 
hypotheses which shall be as plausible as may be. In 
the succeeding chapters of this book, where Chaucer's 
writings are considered separately, such evidence and 
plausible hypotheses as we possess regarding the dates 
of the several works are considered in detail. The reader 
will discover that the evidence is often of the flimsiest. 
It is only necessary here to sum up in the mass what 
may be determined of the orderly development of Chau- 
cer's art on the basis of the information,, more or less 
trustworthy, which we actually possess.^ 

When it is remembered that the date of Chaucer's 
birth cannot be later than 1340, and that the earliest 
of his works for which we can assign a date, the Book 
of the Duchess, was not wintten till 1369, we are at 
once impressed with the fact that Chaucer's art was 
very late in coming to maturity. For the Book of the 
Duchess, though by no means a contemptible work, 
bears evident marks of youth and immaturity. What 
was Chaucer doing between 1360 and 1369? To tliis 
period it has been customary to assign the lioniaunt 
of the Rose, or so much of it as may be considered 

^ The best general study of Chaucerian chronolog'y is the essay by 
J. Koch, The Chronology of Chaucer's Wi-itings, published by the Chau- 
cer Society, London, 1890. Earlier, and therefore less trustworthy, is 
Ten Hrink's Chaucer : Studien zur Geschichle seiner Entwicklung and zur 
Chronologic seiner Schriften, Miinster, 1870. Ten Brink's later views on 
the SHbject may be found in two articles Zur Chronologie von Chaucer's 



16 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Chaucer's work ; and tliough this assignment has been 
questioned/ the present writer is inclined to accept it 
as probable. In this period, too, we may assume, were 
written those ' balades, roundels, virelayes,' in praise of 
love, to which Chaucer refers in the Legend of Good 
JVomen, most of which have doubtless perished. To 
this general period belongs the A. B. C, and possibly 
also The Book of the Lion and Origines upon the 
Maudelcyne, lost works to which Chaucer refers at tlio 
end of the Parson s Tale and in the Legend of Good 
Women respectively. During this, the earliest period 
of his activity, the poet's models were for the most 
part French. The literary world in which he lived was 
a world of dream and lovely shadows, of abstractions 
and graceful conventions, through which his guide was 
Guillaume de Lorris. The Book of the Duchess is a 
pleasing and charming piece, but not a great poem ; 
excellent as is its poetic execution, there is little to 
suggest the Chaucer that was to be. Critics have been 
accustomed to call this period the period of French 
influence. Like most generalizations, the term is con- 
venient but dangerous. If we keep to the term, and 
for convenience' sake it is perhaps well that we should, 
we must be careful to remember that the French 
influence upon Chaucer does not cease with the close 
of the so-called French period. The Prologue to the 
Legend of Good Women is thoroughly in the school 
of Guillaume de Lorris ; and in the Canterhury Tales 
the influence of the satirical method of Jean de Meun, 
the second of the two authors of the Roman de la Hose, 
is evident at every turn. It is the overwhelming pre- 

Schri/ten, in Englische Studien, 17. 1-22, 189-200 (1S92). The opinions 
advocated by these earlier students of the subject have been consider- 
ably modified by later investigations as to the date of particular poems. 
^ Cf. below, p. 5G. 



CHAUCER 17 

dominance of French influence in this early period 
which makes the term apjiropriate. 

In 1373 and again in 1378 Chaucer was sent on 
dij)loniatic missions to Italy, and came for the first 
time into vital contact with the great intellectual move- 
ment of the early Kenaissance. He felt the power of 
Dante's divine poem ; he breathed the atmosphere of 
humanism which emanated from Petrarch and his cir- 
cle ; he found in Boccaccio a great kindred spirit, an 
author of keen artistic susceptibility, who in character 
and temperament had much in common with himself. 
lie found in Italy not only a new set of models, supe- 
rior in art and in depth of thought to those of France ; 
he received as well a new and powerful intellectual 
stimulus, which set him to thinking more deeply on the 
problems of philosophy, and gave him a keener intei-- 
est in the intricacies of human character. It follows 
naturally enough that the decade from 1375 to 1385 
was one of unwearied literary production. Despite his 
somewhat arduous duties as an office-holder in the 
civil service, he found time to produce a series of 
works which would alone assure him a permanent place 
in English literature. In the domain of philosophy he 
made his translation of Boethius on the Consolation 
of Pliilosophi/, one of the half-dozen most popular 
books during the whole of the Middle Ages, and one 
wliieh entered very deeply into Chaucer's philosophy 
of life. Though he was already familiar with the 
doctrines of Boethius as they are represented in tiie 
Roman de la Hose, it is hardly to be questioned that 
the spur to work of this more serious character came to 
him from his Italian voyages. His newly found inter- 
est in human beings as individuals, in the more com- 
plex problems of character, bore fruit in his best 
sustained and most perfect work, Trollus and Criseyde. 



K 



18 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

To this decade, most probably to the earlier years of it, 
belongs the House of Fame, a poem written in the octo- 
syllabic couplets of Chaucer's French models, and in its 
form a dream-vision of the same type as the Book of the 
Duchess, but thoroughly permeated with memories of 
Dante. Here and in the Parliament of Fowls, written in 
1381 or 1382, Chaucer's artistic power has reached 
something very near to full maturity. In each of these 
poems an essentially slight theme is developed with the 
utmost wealth of Avit and fancy; through each Chaucer's 
characteristic humor plays most deliciously. To the 
earlier years of this decade, also, will probably be as- 
signed the legend of St. Cecilia, which was later to be- 
come the Second Niui's Tale, and possibly also the series 
of 'tragedies,' modelled on the De Casibus Virorum et 
Feminarum Illustrium of Boccaccio, later utilized as the 
tale of the Canterbury Monk. To the later years of the 
decade belong the Parliament of Fowls and Troilus; and 
at its very close, I believe, the story of Palamon and 
Arcite, which we know as the Knight's Tale. It is in 
these poems that the influence of Boccaccio is supreme. 
As the first period of the poet's activity has been called 
the period of French influence, so this second period has 
been called that of Italian influence. With the same 
proviso as before, that a great influence once felt never 
ceases to operate, this term also maybe allowed to stand. 
Chaucer has not forgotten his French models; but the 
influence of Italy is predominant. 

To the final period of Chaucer's art belong his great- 
est work, the Canierhury Tales, begun soon after 1386, 
and, on the borderland of the period, the unfinished 
work which may be thought of as a sort of propaedeutic 
to this, the Lerjend of Good Women, a collection of tales 
introduced by the most charming of dream-vision allego- 
ries, which may safely be dated 1385 or 1386. If we speak 



CHAUCER 19 

of this as the period of Chaucer's originality, wo must 
carefully define what we mean by tlie term original. 
For nearly every tale in the Lccjcnd and in the Booh 
of Canterbury a definite original may be found ; nor is 
the idea of either collection essentially Chaucer's own. 
Chaucer, like Shakespeare, seldom troubled himself to 
invent a plot. For a majority, perhaps, of the ideas to 
be found in these works Chaucer is indebted to 'olde 
bokes.' The striking difference between this period 
and the two which preceded is that no single influence 
is predominant, no single influence save that of ihe 
poet's own personality. From the lioman dc la Itose, 
from Boethius, from Italy, from ancient Rome, Chaueer 
borrows at will ; but he has ceased to be a pupil, and 
has become a master. In a sense he is no longer influ- 
enced from without ; he has absorbed and assimilated 
and made his own. Thoughts which were once the 
thoughts of Boethius or Jean de Menu or Boccaccio 
are now his thoughts, lie has included and tran- 
scended. 

Among the individual authors from whom Chaucer 
drew the material which he thus toolc up into himself, 
four stand out preeminent. They are Boethius, Jean de 
Meun, Boccaccio, and Ovid. From Boethius he drew 
the major part of his philosophy, his insistence on a 
stoical superiority to Fortune and her whims, bis in- 
terest in the problem of foreknowledge and free-will, 
his platonic belief that true nobility springs only from 
greatness of soul. Wherever Chaucer moralizes or })hl- 
losophizes, the chances are strong that a similar passu ge 
may be found in the Consolation of Philosophy} To 

1 It must be remembered that the doctrines of Boethius are largely 
reproduced in the Roman de la Rose, and that consequently it is often 
impossible to determine whether Chaucer is borrowing' at first or at 
KCC'.ind hand. iSinee Chaucer was intimately acquainted with both 
works, the question is one of little momeut ; for he cannot have failed 



20 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Jean de Meun, Chaucer's debt is manifold. From him 
he learned the highly effective satirical method which 
he uses in the General Prologue to the Canterhury 
Tales and in the prologues of the Pardoner and the 
V/ife of Bath^ from him he borrowed many of his 
ideas, in particular those which are tinged with radi- 
calism or skepticism ; still more important, he seems 
to have acquired from Jean de Meun that attitude of 
mind, that habit of thought, which became an integral 
part of his nature — the habit of looking at life from 
the standpoint of comedy, that curious blending of easy 
tolerance and biting sarcasm, which is saved only by the 
evident kindliness of his soul from the charge of down- 
right cynicism. From Boccaccio and the Italian Renais- 
sance Chaucer received, as we have already seen, an 
interest in individual humanity, a new and higher stand- 
ard of artistic form, and a great intellectual stimulus, 
not to mention the plots of two of his most important 
compositions. To Ovid, to whose work the philosophical 
eagle in the House of Fame refers as Chaucer's ' owne 
book,' Chaucer was indebted largely and continuously. 
'Altogether,' says Professor Lounsbury, 'Ovid may be 
called the favorite author of Chaucer in respect to 
the extent to which the material taken from him was 
embodied in productions of his own, written at long 
intervals of time apart, and upon subjects essentially 
different.' ^ Though Chaucer knew Virgil, and was not 
unacquainted with other Latin literature, classical an- 
tiquity appealed to him most strongly in the pages of 
Ovid. While drawing from him stories and allusions, 

to recognize Boethius as the original source. He was probably not 
aware of the fact that the work of Boethius is little more than a com- 
pendium of the doctrines of earlier pliilosophers. 

' Studies ill C/iaurer, 2. 251, 252. The quotation is from the chapter 
on ' The Learning- of Cliaucer,' a chapter of which the serious student 
of Chaucer cannot afford to be ignorant. 



CHAUCER 21 

Chaucer must have learned also some of Ovid's ease 
and grace, his power of vivid description, his rich sen- 
suonsness of color and form. 

liecogniziiig how great is Chaucer's debt to the work 
of those who went before him, one is tempted to ask 
what is left to Chaucer as his own. In one sense, little, 
ill another sense, all. If originality be taken to imply 
newness, what was never known nor thought before, ori- 
ginal minds have been very rare in the world's history, 
and have seldom expressed themselves in literature and 
art. The artist is not properly an investigator, a dis- 
coverer of truth ; his function is rather to select and 
assimilate, and by new combination of ideas or by new 
and higher expression, to present the truth with greater 
cogeney and to commend it to the emotions of his audi- 
ence. He is, however, no mere purveyor of the truth ; 
he, too, must be an original thinker, but original in 
the sense that he carries back the truth which he has 
learned to its origin, its fountain-head, in nature itself. 
Novelty is possible to very few ; originality is possible 
to many. It is not necessary that we should drink 
from a new river of truth, but that we should drink its 
waters at the fountain-head, the origo^ unmixed and 
unsullied. When Chaucer retells Boccaccio's story of 
Troilus and his faithless love, he does not merely trans- 
late ; neither does he paraphrase and adapt. Accepting 
the plot of the Filostrato^ he creates the characters 
anew from his own independent knowledge of human 
nature, giving to them new sentiments, new motives, 
impelling them often to new actions, and consequently 
to new situations. Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde and 
Pandarus are as original, ])erlKips more original, than 
tlieir prototypes in Boccaccio. So is it when he bor- 
rows a thouglit from Boethius or Jean de Menu. In 
this sense Chaucer is a great original poet; in this 



22 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

sense, and in this sense alone, may we assert the ori- 
ginality of Shakespeare. If Chauoer's indebtedness 
seems greater than Shakespeare's, it is first because 
the range of his intellect is less universal, and secondly 
because he drew from a smaller number of sources. 
We of to-day draw our ideas from such a multitude of 
writers that our resultant philosophies are mosaics, 
wherein it is all but impossible to distinguish the origin 
of this bit and of that ; Chaucer had relatively few 
sources from which to draw, and his indebtedness to 
each of these is consequently much larger. 

Having seen the principal sources whence the poet's 
ideas were drawn, and the process by which these 
ideas were made his own, it will not be very dii^icult to 
frame some general notion of his ideals and beliefs, of 
his attitude toward the world about him, of what may 
be called his philosophy of life. Not that Chaucer ever 
fashioned for himself a complete and consistent 'sys- 
tem ' of philosophy ; he was as far as possible removed 
from any purpose of deliberate didacticism ; he was 
conscious of no burning 'message' to be delivered 
through the medium of his art ; but it is none the less 
possible to gather from his works a fairly definite idea 
of his intellectual and spiritual constitution. 

If tlie distinction be indeed legitimate, Chaucer's 
mind is remarkable rather for its breadth than for its 
depth, for the extent of its interests rather than for 
the intensity of its convictions. If Chaucer is not a 
profound thinker, he is at any rate marked by an eager 
intellectual curiosity, an openness to ideas, which is 
evident at all periods of his life. In the domain of 
science one notices first of all his interest in astronomy 
and the related pseudo-science of astrology. His works 
abound in allusions astronomical and astrolosrical. Like 
Dante and Milton, he prefers to tell his times and 



CHAUCER 23 

seasons by the great clock of the starry heavens and 
b}' the calendar of the zodiac. So nunute and definite 
are these allusions in the majority of cases that we 
must depend on the professed student of astronomy for 
their elucidation. From such elucidations we learn that 
the allusions are not only definite but accurate. The 
crowning proof of the poet's astronomical attainments 
is furnished by his Trcxit'ise on the Astrolabe, written / 
in his later years for the use of 'litel Lowis my sone.' ' 
Though his acquaintance with physical science was less 
extensive, the discourse of the eagle in the House of 
Fame includes an admirable exposition of the theory 
of the transmission of sound ; and a similar perception 
of scientific principles, though with humorous applica- 
tion, is shown in the concluding episode of the Sum- 
moner^s Tale. That Chaucer had delved somewhat 
deeply into the mysteries of alchemy is shown by the 
tale of the Canon's Yeoman. Still another topic, on 
the borderland of science, in which he betrays a lively 
interest is the cause and significance of dreams.^ 

In the realm of philosophy and metaphysic there was 
one problem which had for Chaucer a powerful fasci- 
nation, the problem of God's foi^eknowledge and the 
freedom of man's will. On this topic the disappointed 
Troilus argues with himself at weary length ; on this 
topic, and on the related topic of man's inability to 
choose for himself, Arcite discourses in the /{jiighfs 
Tale (A. 1251-1274) ; to the same topic the KnigJiVs 
Tale reverts near its close in a long speech by Theseus. 
Some years later Chaucer opened the question again, 
this time in playful mood, in the tale of the Nun's 

1 This interest, which Cliaiicer shares ■with many of his contem- 
poraries, is to be traced to the jiopnlaiity of Macrobiiis's coimiioiitary 
on tlie Somnium Scipionis of Cicero. For an account of this work, soe 
below, p. 05. 



24 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Priest. Somewhat closely allied with this problem of 
foi-eknowledge and predestination is the equally insol- 
uble problem of the existence of evil in a world gov- 
erned by an all-powerful and benevolent God. It is 
this problem which troubles the faithful Dorigen in the 
Franklin' s Tale., when she contemplates ' thise grisly 
feendly rokkes blake ' which line the coast of Brittany, 
and threaten shipwreck to her husband returning from 
over-seas (F. 865-893). With more of bitterness and 
less of faith, the woeful prisoner, Palamon, vexes the 
same baffling question in the Knight! 8 Tale (A. 1303- 
1333) : — 

Th' answere of this I lete to divynis, 

But wel I woot, that iu this world gret pyne is. 

Chaucer does not solve these questions — who indeed 
shall solve them ? — neither does he in his discussion 
of them pass much beyond his master Boethius. What 
is significant for our purpose is not his answers, for 
Chaucer is not primarily a philosopher, but the evi- 
dence which these discussions bear to his eager intel- 
lectual curiosity. 

In the poet's attitude towards these various interests 
of science and metaphysic, in his attitude towards all 
the interests of life, one plainly discerns a tendency 
towax'ds skepticism. It is easy to exaggerate this tend- 
ency; and some of Chaucer's critics, among them Pro- 
fessor Lounsbury, have laid upon this trait an emphasis 
which seems to me undue. Nevertheless, the point is 
not one to be neglected. Interested as he is in astro- 
nomy, Chaucer had learned, at least at the time when 
he wrote the FranMin s Tale, to distrust utterly the 
claims of astrologers and magicians. The magician of 
the story had a book, — 

Which book spak iiinchel of the operaciouns, 
Touchinge the eighte and twenty uiausiouns 



CHAUCER 25 

Tliat longen to the moiie, and swichfolye, 
As in our dayes is nat worth a flije.^ 

That Chiuicer did not take very seriously the claims of 
the alchemists, the Canon s Yeoman^s Tale may bear 
witness. It must be remembered that the majority even 
of the more intelligent of Chaucer's contemporaries, 
and of his successors for several generations to come, 
believed firmly in both of these so-called sciences. Of 
the supernatural in myth and story, Chaucer makes, of 
course, large use in his works; and usually he is artist 
enough to give to the supernatural the air of verisimili- 
tude ; but once, at least, when telling in the Legend 
of Dido of the supernatural mist by which ^neas was 
made invisible on his entrance into Carthage, he feels 
called upon to screen himself from any charge of undue 
credulity : — 

/ can nat seyn if that it he possible, 

But Venus hadde him niaked invisible, — 

Thus seith the book, withouteu any lees.^ 

That Chaucer was capable of questioning some of the 
tenets even of orthodox Christianity, we shall see a little 
later on. 

Coupled with this tendency to skepticism is a notice- 
able tinge of radicalism. This, again, must not be exag- 
gerated ; Chaucer was no revolutionist; he had no desire 
to subvert the existing order of things, either civil or 
ecclesiastical. But the speech of the transformed hag 
at the close of the Wife of Batlis Tale^ and the balade 
of Gentilesse, betray a strong leaven of democracy, 
which is further evident in the lively and sympathetic 
interest in the lower classes shown not infrequently 
iu the Canterbury Tales. Even more radical in its 

^ Chaucer expresses a similar opinion in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, 
2. 4. nS-ni : ' Natheles, thise hen ohservauiicez of judicial niatiore and 
rj'tes of payens. in which my sj)irit ne hath no feith.' 

^ Legend, 1020-1022. 



26 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

tendency is the discussion of celibacy, tlmt cherished 
ideal of mediaeval Catholicism, found in the Wife of 
BatJis Prijlogue^ and touched on again in the Honk's 
Prologue and in the Epilogue to the Nutis Priest''s 
Tale. 

Though it has been a comparatively easy matter to 
discover Chaucer's attitude towards many of the inter- 
ests of his day, it is difficult, pei'haps impossible, to 
determine with any exactness his attitude towards Clu'is- 
tianity and the Catholic Church ; for of his inmost con- 
victions and hopes Chaucer, like other modest men, 
speaks but seldom, and with reserve. We must not be 
misled, as were the reformers of Henry VIII's time, by 
the bitterness of Chaucer's attacks on the corruptions 
of the Church, into classing him with Wiclif as one of 
the forerunners of tlie Reformation. A contemporary 
writer of unquestioned orthodoxy, John Gower, ful- 
minates with equal bitterness, if with less effectiveness, 
against precisely the same abuses ; and Langland, who 
in his treatment of the clergy is at one witli Chaucer and 
Gower, is always a faithful son of the Church. From 
a great mass of inde]iendent testimony, we are compelled 
to the belief that Chaucer's picture of wholesale cor- 
ruption is but little overdrawn. It is entirely conceiv- 
able that Chaucer, like Gower, should, while remaining 
loyal to the Churcli, deplore its abuses. If Chaucer has 
shown us unworthy churchmen, has he not also ])ainted, 
with all a})parent sympathy, the portrait of an ideal 
pastor, the ' povre persoun of a toun ' ? As regards the 
vital doctrines of Christianity, Chaucer maintains a 
discreet silence, from which nothing can be inferred 
one way or the otlier. Professor Lounsbury has made 
much ^ of the opening lines of the Prologue to the 
Legend of Good Woinen : — 

^ Studies in Chaw.er, 2. 512. The whola of the section entitled ' Cbau- 



CHAUCER 27 

A thousand tymes have I herd men telle, 

That ther is joye in Iieven, and peyne in belle ; 

Anil I acorde wel that hit is so; 

Pmt natheU's, yit wot I wol also, 

That ther nis noon dwelling in tliis contree, 

That either hath in heven or hello yhe, 

Ne may of hit non other weyes witen, 

But as he hath herd seyd, or fouude hit writen. 

This Professor Lounsbury considers a skeptical utter- 
ance. But taken in the light of its context, the passa<je 
is capable of an interpretation directly the opposite. 
Chaucer is arguing that we must give 'feyth and ful 
credence ' to books, even when they relate things be- 
yond the pale of our personal experience, just as we 
believe in the joys of heaven and the pains of hell, 
though no man living has ever tasted of either. Equally 
inconsequent is any argument drawn from the lines 
in the Knu/ht's Talc whieli have to do with Arcite's 
death (A. 2808-2814): — 

His spirit chaiinged hons, and wente ther, 

As I cam never, I can nat tellen wher. 

Thert'or I stinte, I nam no divinistre ; 

Of soules finde I nat in this registre, 

Ne me ne list thilke opiniouns to telle 

Of hem, though tliat they wryten wher they dwelle. 

Chaucer may surely decline to accompany his person- 
ages ' through the strait and dreadful pass of death ' 
without being accused of infidelit)'^ as to the life beyond. 
A somewhat stronger case may be made out for Chau- 
cer's doubt as to the efficacy of the absolution granted 
by the corrupt clergy of his day. After his mereih'ss 
exposure of the methods of the Summoner in the Gen- 
eral Prologue, he says : — 

cer's Relations to Religion ' deserves caroful reading. To the prfsont 
■writer Professor Lounsbury seems to have laid undue empliasis on 
Chaucer's chance remarks. 



28 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Of cursin<T oghte ech gilty man him drede — 
For curs vvol slee, right as assoilliug saveth. 

This is unquestionaLly an ironical ntterance ; but one 
satirical remark must not be allowed to weigh too 
heavily, nntil it has been proved that Chancer did not 
write the f arson s Tale. The doctrine of transub- 
stantiation, openly combated during Chaucer's lifetime 
' by the reformer Wiclif, the poet nowhere questions. 
That Chaucer's mind betrays a tendency towards 
skepticism, or at least towards criticism, no one will 
doubt. His restless intellectual curiosity led him to 
question many things in heaven and earth ; and under 
the influence of the new spirit of the Renaissance, he 
began no doubt to exercise the 'right of private judg- 
ment.' But that he was and remained, in his beliefs 
and hopes, in all essentials, a Christian and a loyal 
Catholic, there is no reason to deny and no adequate 
reason to doubt. Of the essentially religious nature of 
his character such works as the Boethius translation, 
the Parson's Tale, the Lawj^er's tale of Constance, 
and the Prioress's story of the ' litel clergeon ' furnish 
sufficient proof. The essential rightness of his moral 
judgment no one familiar with his work can seriously 
doubt. Some of his work, dealing as it does with fla- 
grant immorality, is of questionable propriety; but with 
one or two exceptions, there is no attempt to show sin in 
I other than its true light. Even these exceptions are to 
I be explained as due to an excess of the spirit of comedy, 
1 rather than to a perverted moral judgment. In tlie 
little that we know of Chaucer's life, there is nothing 
that is inconsistent with the high virtues of ' trouthe 
and honour, fredom and curteisye,' or witli the essen- 
tiall}^ Christian virtue, humility of heart. 

Right as ai'e his moral judgments, quick as he is to 
perceive evil, Chaucer is never touched by the spirit 



CHAUCER 29 

of the reformer. He was capable, doubtless, of sympa- 
tliizinc^ with a Laiifj^land or a Wiolif, but he never set 
liiniself consciously to further their work. He sees the 
corruption of the Church, and clearly recognizes the 
evil of it; but wlio is he to set the crooked straiglit? 
Tliere has been always, since the close of the Golden Age, 
evil in the world ; in one form or another evil will al- 
ways exist. It is so, apparently, that God made the world. 
If there is always evil, there is always also good ; the 
worst hypocrites in the Cunterhury Tales have in them 
somewhat of good, something even lovable. The good 
is alwaj's admirable ; and the evil, though deplorable, 
is so very amusing. If this is not the best possible 
world, it is at least the best actual world, the world at 
any rate in wliich we must spend our threescore years 
and ten. Let us cleave to what is good, and laugh good- 
naturedly at what is evil. Above all, let us keep our 
hearts kind and tender, lacerated by no sceva indlgna- 
tio at what we cannot cure. In this spirit of kindly tol- 
erance Chaucer looked at the world about him. To the 
ardent reformer such an attitude as this seems merely 
base and pusillanimous ; but in Chaucer it springs 
neither from weakness nor indifference, but from quiet 
conviction. The reformer is necessarily a protestant, a 
dissenter ; Chaucer is essentially a Catholic, his spirit 
is the Catholic spirit — perhaps it may be shown to be 
essentially the spirit of Christianity. To the man of 
truly humble spirit his own importance in the universe 
seems but small, his own exertions of slight avail. He 
will live his own life in the world as well as he can. 
S(>dulously removing the beams from his own eyes, he 
will give to the world whatever of good he can, and 
see to it that his own small influence be an influence 
towards righteousness ; for the rest, he will leave the sal- 
vation of the world in the competent hands of the God 



30 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

who has created it. Chaucer has said all this himself 
in what is one of his noblest uttei*ances, the Balade de 
Bon Conseyl^ to which has been given the title Truth. 

Tempest thee noglit al croked to redresse, 
In trust of hir that turneth as a bal: 
Gret rests stant in litel besinesse; 
And eek be war to sporne ageyn an al; 
Stryve noght, as doth the crokke with tlie wal. 
Daunte thyself, that dauntest otheres dede; 
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. 

That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse, 

The vvrastling for this worlde axeth a fal. 

Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse; 

P''orth, pilgrim, forth ! Forth, beste, out of thy stal ! 

Know thy coiitree, look up, thank God of al; 

Hold the hye wey, and l;it thy gost tliee lede; 

And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. 

That is the Catholic spirit ; that is the spirit that actu- 
ated Chaucer's life. Reformers may rail at this spirit 
as they please, but they cannot prove that it is weak 
or base. 

One other line from the balade entitled Truth, not 
included in the two stanzas given above, must be quoted 
for the light which it throws on Chaucer's temper. It 
is the line with which the poem opens : — 

Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse. 
In the Prologue to Sir T7topns, it will be remem- 
bered, when the Host calls upon Chaucer to tell his tale, 
he accuses him of riding ever with his eyes upon the 
ground, and urges him to approach nearer and look up 
merrily : — 

' lie semetli elvisli by his contenannce, 
For unto no wight dooth he daliaunce.' 

Again, in the House of Fainc^ the eagle says to Chan- 
cier : — 



CHAUCER 31 

< And noglit only fro fer contree, 
That ther no tyding cointh to thee, 
But of tiiy verray neygliebores, 
That dwollen almost at tliy dores, 
Thou herest neither that ue this.' 

The trait to which these passages all point is one highly 
characteristic of Chaucer's nature, a certain aloofness 
from the world of men and things. Though keenly in- 
terested, he never seems to have felt himself a part of 
it. To the great peasants' revolt of 1381, the dramatic 
denouement of which in the streets of London he may 
well have witnessed with his own eyes, he refers but 
once, and then only playfully in three lines.^ Though 
the battle of Poitiers was fought in Chaucer's lifetime, 
and though he himself had seen service in the fields of 
France, he never sings the glory of the English arms. 
Closely attached as he was to the royal court, he never 
speaks of the great di])lomatic struggle which was being 
fought out between England and the Pope. Chaucer was 
living the while in another realm, the i*ealm of fantasy. 
Not that he felt It necessary, like Wordsworth, to retire 
to the solitude of some Dove Cottage ; fond as he was 
of wandering in the fields of a May morning, Chaucer 
would have been quite miserable in Dove Cottage. He 
lived the major part of his life in London, and held 
important offices under the Crown. We have every 
reason to believe that he discharged the duties of these 
offices faithfully and efficiently. Neither did he close 
his eyes to things about him ; few English poets have 
observed the ways of men so minutely and so accurately 
as he. He could be a practical man of affairs, when thnt 
was necessary ; he was doubtless the most charming of 
companions over a glass of canary or old sack. But by 
temperament and choice he held aloof, not an actor but 
1 B. 4584-458(5. 



32 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

a spectator, sympathizing but not sharing in the inter- 
ests of the world. lie was in the world, but not of it ; 
and for this very reason, perhaps, he continues to live 
when the more active and conspicuous men of his age 
have become but a shadow and a name. 

The intellectual curiosity and openness of mind 
which mark Chaucer's attitude towards the workl in 
general are equally evident in his more exclusively lit- 
erary activity. Never a profound scholar,^ even when 
measured by the standards of his own day, he was, 
none the less, an omnivorous reader, and dipped more 
or less deeply into a great variety of books on widely 
diverse subjects. Professor Lounsbury has noticed the 
significant fact that a large number of his citations and 
allusions are drawn from the earlier pages of a work. 
In his reading, as in his writing, his curiosity was ever 
leading him into new courses ; after the first flush of 
interest was spent, he found it hard to hold himself 
down to the completion of a work begun with all enthu- 
siasm. In his mastery of foreign languages, too, the 
same trait is discoverable. Though he read Latin, 
French, and Italian fluently, he is often guilty, when 
held down to the stricter work of translation, of rather 
serious blunders. It is but fair to remember, however, 
that in the absence of adequate lexicons and gram- 
mars, strict verbal accuracy was not easy of attain- 
ment. Similarly, when we catch him at error in an 
allusion, it must be remembered that books were not 
then, as now, readily accessible, and that even a pains- 
taking scholar, which Chaucer certainly was not, was 
obliged to trust to memory much more than was al- 
ways safe. Boccaccio, who made much greater jueten- 
sions to scholarship than Chaucer, was capable of such 

^ See Professor Lounsbury 's chapter on ' The Learning of Chau- 
cer,' Stii lies in Chaucer, 2. 109-426. 



CHAUCER 33 

a hybiiil coinage as Filostrato^ the title of his Troi- 
his romance, which he took to mean 'laid low by love;* 
anil the ponderously learned Gower was not aware that 
Tullius and 'Cithero' were one and the same pei'- 
son.^ In view of this last slip, it may surely be for- 
given to Chaucer if he similarly fails to recognize the 
identity of lulus and Ascanius.^ Chaucer's works 
abound, indeed, with inaccuracies and with shocking 
anachronisms; but so, for that matter, do the works of 
Shakespeare. Unfortunately, however, Chaucer has a 
thoroughly medieval love of parading his learning. 
It is one of the few serious blemishes in his art that 
he cannot refrain from long scholastic digressions, in 
which he heaps up authority on authority, and even 
suffers his personages to interrupt a passionate speech 
with an explanation of some obscure term needlessly 
introduced.^ 

But if Chaucer, despite his parade of learning, did 
not read with scholarly thoroughness, he read with the 
fine discrimination of the literary critic. Nothing can 
be more untrue to Chaucer than to speak of him, as was 
long the fashion, as an untutored genius, ' warbling 
his native wood-notes wild,' attaining his artistic effects 
by mere happy blunder or lucky intuition. He was a 
conscious critic of his own work and of the work of 
others. There is good reason to believe that he beg.in 
the series of ' tragedies ' known to us as the Monies 
Tale^ in all good faith as a serious work of art ; but 
later, when he incorporated the unfinished series into 
the Canterhury Tales^ he had already recognized its 
essential literary badness, and through the mouths of 
the Host and the Knight conveys his own just criti- 

1 Confessio Amantis, 4. 2r>48 ; 7. 1588-1698. 

2 House oj" Fame, 1T7-17S. 

« Troilus and Criseyde, 5. 897-899. 



34 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

cism of the work. Similarly, he was not long in dis- 
covering the inherent flaw in the scheme of the Legend 
of Good Women, and abandoning it as a mistaken 
experiment.^ The exquisite burlesque of Sir Thopas 
and the Host's common-sense criticism thereon show 
tliat he had accurately discerned the literary extrava- 
gances of the widely popular romance of chivalry. 
Still higher proof of his fine literary taste is furnished 
by the process of selection and rejection, alteration and 
addition, with which he utilizes the works which serve 
him as sources for his compositions. 

The eclectic character of Chaucer's artistic procedure 
is strikingly shown in the variety of his experiments 
in versification. Metrically, to be sure, his range is 
very limited ; he employs normally only the iambic 
rhythm ; and, save in Sir Thopas,'^ his measure is 
always either tetrameter or pentameter, though ample 
variety is attained by skillful handling of the pauses, 
by not infrequent substitutions of trochee or dactyl for 
the normal iambus, by large use of the feminine ending, 
and by various drawing out of the sense from one verse 
into another. It is in stanza form that Chaucer experi- 
mented widely. Nine tenths or more of his verse com- 
position is in one of three stanzas, — the octosyllabic 
couplet, characteristic of his earliest or French period, 
though reappearing in the House of I*^am,e ; the rime 
royal, or seven-line stanza of Troilus and Criseyde, 
which belongs in general to the second or Italian pei'iod ; 
and the heroic couplet, in which was written his matur- 
est work. The last two of these stanzas, of which the 
first continued to be widely employed until Shake- 
speare's youth, and the second is rivaled only by blank 

1 Cf. below, p. U\ 

- Further exception sliniilil, perluips, \m made of two stanzns in 
Anelida and Arcite (lines 272-2SU, 3o3-341), where the pentameter is 
broken up by iuterual lihios. 



CHAUCER 35 

verse in use and popularity, Chaucer was the first to 
introduce into English literature. In his mastery of all 
three he has never been surpassed. The minor poems 
display several other stanzas. If the rimes of the seven- 
line stanza are repeated through three or four succes- 
sive stanzas, we get the balade form used by Chaucer 
so effectively in Truth, in Gentilesse., and in Lack of 
Stcnclfastness. In the A. B. C. and in the Jllonk's 
Tale appears an eight-line stanza, with rime-scheme 
ahabbcbc, which Chaucer apparently abandoned as less 
jiliahle than the seven-line stanza of the rime royal. 
This stanza, with the addition of a final alexandrine 
riming c, becomes the famous S[)enserian stanza of 
the Faerie Queene. The Complaint to His Lady is 
little more than an exercise in versification. The poem 
begins with two stanzas of the rime royal ; then shifts 
into the terza rima of Dante, employed here for the 
first time^m English verse, and ends in a ten-line 
stanza with rime-scheme aahaahcddc. The complaint 
inserted into Anelida and Arcite is a highly artificial 
arrangement of varying stanzas, with strophe and 
answering antistrophe. Still another artificial form 
borrowed from France is the triple roundel entitled 
Merciles Beaute, with wliich should be grouped the 
charming roundel introduced into the Parliumevt of 
Fowls. When it is remembered that in some of these 
artificial verse-forms it is necessary to find twelve 
words riming with the same sound, and that in a few 
instances the number is yet greater, Chaucer's mastery 
of the art of riming is ap])arent ; for seldom are we 
conscious of any constraint due to the exigencies of 
rime. 

No less remarkable is tlie breadth and variety of 
Chaucer's range, wlien his work is looked at from the 
standpoint of its content. Preciuineutly, of course, his 



36 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

fame rests on his power as a narrator, the power to tell 
an interesting story supremely well. His narrative 
method is characterized by straightforward directness 
antl simplicity. Ordinarily, his stories have a single 
plot, one main thread of interest, which is taken up at 
the beginning and followed without interruption to the 
end. This is the method of Boccaccio and of mediaeval 
story-telling in general ; it is the method which Wil- 
liam Morris adopted in his Earthly Paradise. The 
method of the modern writer of short stories is quite 
different from this, since his purpose is usually not so 
much to narrate a series of hapj^enings as to create a 
single strong impression. His story will not begin at 
the beginning, and will seldom be conducted to its logi- 
cal end ; it will consist of a series of striking situations, 
presented not necessarily in their chronological order, 
with just so much of narrative as may be necessary to 
bind these situations together and make them under- 
standable. To this modern method Chaucer approxi- 
mates in the Pardoner s Tale, and in lesser measure 
in the Ii^nif//it''s Tale,^ from which the reader carries 
away not so much the recollection of a narrative as the 
vivid memory of a few important scenes. Even when 
Chaucer clings more closely to the mediaeval method of 
direct narration, he achieves a somewhat similar effect 
by a subtle shifting of emphasis. If one compares his 
stories of Virginia and of Constance with their originals, 
it may be seen how, by the addition of a few skillful 
touches, the interest of narrative has been subordinated 
to the strong impression of a noble character. With 
what admirable skill Chaucer could handle a more com- 
plicated plot, in which two independent intrigues are 
made to furnish eacii the catastrophe for the other, 
may be seen in the conduct of the Miller s Tale. 
1 Cf. what is said of these tales below, pp. 172, 227-230. 



CHAUCER 37 

No less brilliant is Chaucer's art in description. 
From the merry May morning, gay with singing of 
birds and sounding of the huntsman's horn, in the 
Book of the Duchess to the matchless series of por- 
traits in the Prologue to the Cuntcrhury Tales^ the 
vividness and variety of Chaucer's pictures are un- 
snri)assed. It were idle to enumerate them, for the 
reader's memory will call up a score of unforgettable 
scenes. What is the KnigJit's Tale but a splendidly 
pictured tapestry, full of color and motion? Particu- 
larly remarkable in these descriptions is their scope 
and breadth. There is much more of definiteness than 
of vagueness in Chaucer's descriptive method ; yet the 
mind is seldom wearied with a confusing catalogue of 
details. A few significant details give exactness to the 
picture, while suggesting a whole realm of things be- 
yond. It is as though a veil were suddenly withdrawn, 
letting the scene burst instantly into view. Lowell has 
called attention to this quality of suggestiveness in the 
description at the beginning of the Clerk's Tale: — 

Ther is, at the west syde of Itaille, 

Donii at the rote of Vesvihis the colde, 

A lusty playne, habiindaut of vitaille, 

Wher many a tour and toun thou mayst biholde, 

That founded were in tyuie of fadres olde, 

And many another delitable siglite, 

And Saluces this noble contree highte. 

Though not primarily a reflective poet, Chaucer is 
no less a master in this division of his art. Illustra- 
tions may be drawn from among his minor poems, 
and even more from among the moralizing passages 
of Troilns and the Cantcrhury Talcs. The House of 
Fame, too, is essentially a work of reflection, though 
clothed in the form of an allegorical narrative. 

Unfortunately, Chaucer never wrote a drama ; but 



38 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

that he might have heen, had the dramatic form been 
developed in his time, one of the foremost of English 
dramatists, there can be no manner of doubt. A master 
of the art of characterization, skillful in his handling 
of dialogue, delighting in action, and keenly alive to 
the value of effective situation and climax, above all 
a master of constructive art, he is a dramatist in 
all but the fact. Evident in many of the Canterhiiry 
Tales, and still more manifest in the story of the 
pilgrimage itself, this dramatic power reaches its full- 
est expression in Troilus and Criseyde^ a work which 
is better dramatically than Shakespeare's play on the 
same theme. The five books into which the poem is 
disposed correspond accurately to the five acts of the 
drama; the action rises to a climax in the third book, 
and falls to a catastrophe in the fifth. The poem con- 
sists of a series of dramatic scenes ; and the story is 
carried forward almost entirely by means of dialogue. 
The characterization of Crise^^de is as subtle as any- 
thing in Shakesj^eare ; and Pandarus is hardly less 
remarkable. In virtue of this work alone, Chaucer 
has an unquestionable right to be considered as the 
forerunner of the great dramatic literature of Eliza- 
beth and James. 

After considering the range of Chaucer's ]iower in 
narrative and dramatic art, it is surprising to find liow 
limited is Iiis power as a lyrist. Though in the Pri- 
oress's Tale, in the Lawyer's tale of Constance, and 
in the Booh of the Duchess there is a distinctly lyrical 
note, Chaucer seldom enters the domain of the lyric 
]n-oper. The best of his short })oems, such as Truth, 
Gentilesse, and The Former Age, are reflective rather 
than lyrical, while the love poems, though charming 
in their way, are too conventional and artificial to 
touch us deeply. Almost alone in its fresh spontane- 



CHAUCER 39 

ity, its authentically lyric quality, stands the roundel 
sung by the choir of birds at tiie end of the Parliu' 
merit of F^oicls. Why this absence of lyric power, it 
is hard to say. In tlie age of Elizabeth dramatic and 
lyric went hand in hand. The fact must merely be 
recorded as one of the limitations in Chaucer's genius. 

The variety and breadth of Chaucer's art shows 
itself again in his wide register of tone. For illustra- 
tion one need not go beyond the limits of the Ccinter- 
hur}j Tales. There is the romantic idealism of the 
Kn'ujht's Tale and the high religious idealism of 
the Prioress's Tale side by side with the Zolaesque 
realism of the Miller and the Reeve. The Wife of 
Bath's prologue is brutally frank in its realism ; her 
tale is a graceful tale of faerie. The delightful extrava- 
ganza of Chanticleer and Partlet is introduced by a 
realistic genre painting of the poor widow's cottage, 
worthy of Teniei's or Gerard Dou. In both of these 
manners Chaucer seems equally at home. The domi- 
nant tone in the Canterhury Tales, as in Chaucer's 
work as a whole, is that of humor ; but Chaucer's 
humor is as protean in its variety as any other of his 
qualities. It ranges from broad farce and boisterous 
horse-i^lay in the tales of the Miller and the Summoner 
to the sly insinuations of the JCnight's Tale and the 
infinitely graceful burlesque of Sir Thopas. Every in- 
termediate stage between these extremes is represented, 
the most chai*acteristic mean between the two being 
found, perhaps, in the tale of the Nun's Priest. Tne 
only constant element in Chaucer's humor is its kind- 
liness, its healthiness, its spontaneous freshness. 

With a keen sense of humor is usually joined, as in 
Thackeray and Dickens, a deep susceptibility to the 
pathetic, and Chaucer is no exception to the rule ; but, 
unlike Dickens and Thackeray, he knows the delicate 



40 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

line which separates pathos from sentimentality, and 
over this line he never steps. Troilus as he eagerly 
watches for the returning form of Cressid, Arcite taking 
his last leave of his kinsman and his love, Dorigen as she 
goes to keep her terrible tryst, Constance comforting 
her little son, Virginius dooming his daughter to the death 
that shall vindicate her honor, Griselda preparing for the 
wedding feast of the rival who is to supplant her, above 
all the matchless story of the murdered schoolboy singing 
his Alma Redemptoris — these show the touch of pathos 
in its purest form, and the list might be indefinitely 
extended. In any one of these instances a lesser poet 
would have become sentimental. 

To the sublimer heights of tragedy Chaucer rarely 
ascends. Though the Pardoner's Tale moves us to tragic 
pity and fear, it does this rather by its accessories — 
the dreadful plague, the mysterious veiled figure, the 
suddenness of its catastrophe — than by an^^ working 
out of inevitable moral law. Its effect is not so much 
tliat of tragedy as of superb melodrama. Chaucer called 
his Troilus and Criseyde a 'tragedie,' and he has handled 
his theme in the spirit of tragedy as the JNIiddle Ages 
understood the term. The story moves forward relent- 
lessly to an ever impending doom. But the poem has not 
the intensity of great tragedy. Its effect is rather a 
blending of pathos and tragic irony. Troilus has sought 
and achieved a great happiness which turns in his grasp 
to the bitterness of ashes. So it must ever be, Chaucer 
declares, with the 'false felicity' of temporal joy. It is 
Chaucer's constant sense of the irony of life, of the mock- 
ery which our ultimate achievement casts on rosy expec- 
tation, that dominates his more serious thought. This 
irony is most often a comic irony; but at times, as in 
Troilus or the Pardoner's Talc, it becomes essentially 
tragic. 



CHAUCER 41 

What is this world ? what askelh men to have ? 
Now with his K)ve, now in his colde grave 
AUone, withouten any coinpanye. 

Tho autlior of tlieso lines was surely capable of being 
serious; there are few lines in our literature more preg- 
nant with the tragedy of life. But this note is never 
long sustained ; where possible, it is avoided altogether. 
Cai)able of seriousness, Chaucer has deliberately chosen 
to portray the world through the medium of comedy. 

I woot myself best how I stonde, 

are Chaucer's words when he refuses to compete for 
the favors of Lady Fame. I, for one, am ready to 
believe that Chaucer knew his own powers best, and 
am unwilling to quarrel with him for his choice of the 
comic spirit ; for comedy such as his constitutes a 
' criticism of life ' as true witiiin its limits as that of 
* high seriousness ' and the 'grand style.' 

Of Chaucer's style it will not do to talk at great 
longtli, for its quality can be felt much better than 
it can be analyzed. It is so delicate, indeed, that any 
elaborate analysis seems in the nature of an imperti- 
nence. It is characterized preeminently by its simpli- 
city. Though for his metre's sake the poet afPects a 
slight archaism in the preservation of the final e, which 
was already beginning to disappear, his words are the 
words of every-day life. His sentences are short and 
loose, simple in their structure, free from awkward in- 
versions and from any studied balance or antithesis. As 
his diction is simple, so is his thought. In his later 
work, at least, there is an almost complete absence of 
tlie strained conceits, the far-fetched metaphors, and 
elaborate puns, which mar much of Shakespeare's 
work ; and this is the more remarkable when one 
remembers Chaucer's reverence for the authority of 



42 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Petrarch. Once in the FrcDihUn^s Tale^ he finds him- 
self betrayed into an overwrought metaphor : — 
For tli'orisonte hath reft the soniie his light. 

Instead of canceling the line, he lets it stand, and 
adds : — 

This is as uiuche to seye as it was night. 

To read Chaucer is to listen to the charming, gracious 
conversation of a cultured gentleman who is also a 
poet. At times his language is as terse and pregnant as 
any in Shakespeare. Such is the line in the Knighfs 
Tale which shows us 

The sniyler with the knyf under the cloke. 

But ordinarily he has leisure to give his thouglit full 
expression. He has ' the power of diffiisicm without 
being diffuse.' His stories tell themselves away with- 
out apparent effort, even without apparent art, without 
hurry, but without delay. 

A povre widwe, somdel stope in age, 
Was wliylom dwelling in a narwe cotage, 
Bisyde a grove, stonding in a dale. 
This widwe, of which I telle you my tale — 

There is nothing remarkable in these lines ; but they 
are the very essence of literature, and no one can resist 
their charm. 

If Chaucer's st3de is marked by naturalness and 
simplicity, let no one suppose that it is a careless style. 
Artless as his lines seem, they are full of that high- 
est art which effaces itself. In his perfect finish, his 
unassuming elegance, Chaucer is essentially Gallic, 
one may almost say Hellenic. With all his simplicity, 
there is a quiet energy, a sureness of touch, a delicacy 
of perception, which betray the master mind. Above 
all, there is in Chaucer's style, as in the man himself, 



CHAUCER 43 

a sanity and poise, a calm equanimity, which render it 

peculiarly grateful to the ears of our modern world, 
wearied with much wild talking. 

No one will pretend, I suppose, that Chaucer is a poet 
of the first rauk. He is not a great prophet like Dante, 
with a burning message which he must deliver ; only 
rarely does he move one's whole emotional and moral 
nature as does Shakespeare. Though sharing in the 
fresli spontaneity which makes the Homeric poems a 
perpetual solace, he has not Homer's majesty ; nor does 
lie attain to the dignity and elegance of Virgil. As 
a comedian he will hardly rank with Cervantes and 
IVIoliere. In intellect and in art he is inferior to all 
these ; but among poets of the second rank his posi- 
tion is high. In the list of English poets other than 
Shakespeare, Milton is the only one who may be held 
to surpass him; and between two men so dissimilar in 
their powers one will hesitate to determine the preem- 
inence. 

The qualities which make for Chaucer's greatness 
have already been reviewed in the preceding pages, and 
will be considered again in more detail as they mani- 
fest themselves in individual works, in the chapters 
which follow ; but the quality which distinguishes him 
preeminently is his sanity and poise. With the possible 
exception of Shakespeare, thei'e is no English poet of 
power even commensurate with Chaucer's, who is so 
eminently sane. We are living in an age which is rest- 
less, in many respects unhealthy, insane. On one side 
of us is the dull sway of materialism, commercialism, 
money-getting ; on the other side we still hear the fran- 
tic protests of a Carlyle and a Ruskin, the revolution- 
ary rliapsodies of a Byron or a Shelley, we listen to the 
j)ersistent self-analyses of a Wordswortli or a Coleridge, 
or to the beautiful but morbid imaginings of a Keats ; 



44 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

or, coming nearer to the present day, we hearken to the 
strange dreamings of a Maeterlinck or the unsparing 
ieonoclasms of an Ibsen. I woukl not for a moment 
be tliought insensible to the greatness of these men ; 
I insist merely that with all their varied greatness 
there is infused a strain which is morbid and unhealthy. 
The eighteenth century had sanity without poetry ; the 
nineteenth had poetry without sanity ; Chaucer, like 
the great Greeks, combined both. 

We turn to Chaucer not primarily for moral guid- 
ance and sjiiritual sustenance, nor yet that our emotions 
may be deeply and powerfully moved ; we turn to him 
rather for refreshment, that our eyes and ears may 
be opened anew to the varied interest and beauty of 
the world around us, that we may come again into 
healthy living contact with the smiling green earth 
and with the hearts of men, that we may shake off 
for a while ' the burthen of the mystery of all this 
unintelligible world,' and share in the kindly laughter 
of the gods, that we may breathe the pure, serene 
air of equanimity. 



CHAPTER III 

THE IIOMAUNT OF THE ROSE 

It is thoroug-lily in accord with what we know of Chau- 
cer's innate modesty that his first serious undertaking 
in literature shoukl have been a translation rather than 
an original work ; and surely no better exercise than 
that of translation could have been found to develop 
a technical mastery of poetic form. The poem which 
Chaucer chose to translate was the widely popular 
Moinan de la I^ose, a work which offered a broad and 
varied scope to the young poet's powers of expression, 
and was, moreover, thoroughly congenial to his tastes 
and sympathies. 

Tliough the Chaucerian Homaunt of the Rose ex- 
tends to the no mean length of 7G98 lines, it reproduces 
less than a third of its French original, for The French 
the Roman de la Rose contains in Meon's p°^°^- 
edition 22,047 lines of octosyllabic couplets. Of these, 
lines 1-5169 and 10716-125G4 alone are translated. 
But if the English translation is only a fragment of its 
original, Chaucer's familiarity with the whole poem, and 
the influence which it exerted upon him, are so great, 
that the poem in its entirety is of the first importance 
to the student of Chaucer's work. 

The Roman de la Rose is the work not of a single 
author, but of two authors, of two successive genera- 
tions, utterly unlike in their ideals and temperaments. 
Of the first of these, Guillaume de Lorris, whose work 
extends to line 40G8, we know very little ; and for that 
little we are indebted to the second i^oet, Jean de Mean, 



46 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

wlio continued his work. From the statements of the 
younger author we are able to calcuLite that Guillaume 
must have been born about the year 1200, and that 
the composition of the poem must have fallen between 
the years 1225 and 1230. His work is supposed to 
have been terminated by his early death. Of the place 
of his birth and of his residence we do not know. The 
little town of Lorris is a few miles east of Orleans ; 
and Guillaume's name may indicate that as his birth- 
place ; but we cannot be sure. If, as seems probable, 
he was a clerk, his education may have been received 
either at Orleans or at Paris. His dialect shows that 
he lived in the north of France ; but in the absence 
of any critical edition of the Honian, it is impossible 
to be more exact. 

Of Jean de Meun, who forty years after Guillaume's 
death undertook the continuation of his unfinished work, 
we know somewhat more. Jean Clopiuel was born at 
Meun-sur-Loire, aud died before November 6, 1305, on 
which date his comfortable house in Paris was deeded 
to the Dominicaus of the rue St. Jacques. Since it can 
be shown from internal evidence that his continuation 
of the Roman was written between 12G8 and 1277, M. 
Langlois fixes on the year 1240 as the approximate date 
of his birth. From his own statement in another work 
we learn that his life was an honorable and prosperous 
one, and that it had been his fortune to serve ' les plus 
granz genz de France.' He was an excellent scholar, 
widely read in Latin and French, and the author of 
several works, among which may be mentioned a trans- 
lation of the Conf^olation of Philosophy of Boethins, 
a book to which he is deeply indebted in the Moman 
de la Rose. 

Two men more dissimilar in character than the 
authors of the Roman it would be hard to find. 



THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE 47 

Guillaume is essentially an idealist, a purist, clierisliing 
the fair ideal of Middle Age chivalry, living in a world 
of dream and shadows. To him love is the great in- 
iluence which ennobles and purifies the human heart, 
woman is a superior, well-nigh perfect being, little 
short of the divine, in whose service man may well 
expend all in him that is best and highest. Plis poem 
is a love story and a courtly treatise on the art of love. 
Five years and more ago, he tells us, as he lay on his 
bed one May morning, he dreamed a wondrous dream. 
In this dream he wandered out throuuh the flowerinp; 
fields, with the birds singing all about him, and catne 
at last to a great garden all walled about, the garden 
of love. In the midst of the garden, hard by the foun- 
tain of Narcissus, stands a goodly rose tree, on which 
grows a bud which the i)oet longs earnestly to pluck. 
This is the allegorical device by which the jDoet shadows 
forth his love for the lady of his desire. The porter 
at the gate of the garden is Idleness. The dramatis 
personoi are, save the poet himself, such abstractions 
as Largesse, Fair- Welcome, Evil-Tongue, Jealousy, 
and Danger, or haughtiness. When allegory is but a 
literary device, it is always dangerous ; but Guillaume 
thought in terms of allegory, and his allegorical per- 
sonages, if shadowy, are none the less true and effec- 
tive. Guillaume de Lorris is not a great poet ; but he 
is a good poet, and one can hardly fail to enjoy the 
quiet loveliness of his work. 

fican de Mcun is of quite a different stamp, so differ- 
ent, indeed, that it seems a mere caprice that he should 
have undertaken the continuation of such a })oeni as 
the Homan de la RoHe. If Guillaume de Lorris is a 
conservative and an idealist, Jean de Meun is a realist 
and a revolutionist. To him the chivnlric ideal is mere 
nonsijnse. In his democratic creed noble birth is but an 



48 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

accident ; personal worth is the only patent of true no- 
bility. Woman is a vain and fickle creature, a snare for 
men's feet. Love is but a game played for the prize of 
sensual gratification. In crossing the line which divides 
the work of the two authors, the reader phmges into a 
totally different atinosjihere. Jean de Mean has kcj)t to 
the machinery of Guillanme's poem; the same allegori- 
cal pei'sonages pass before us ; the quest of the rose still 
remains the ostensible theme of the poem ; but the ])()et 
uses the framework merely as a device for the introduc- 
tion of his own ideas. There are long digressions on 
various topics, philosophical and theological, wearisome 
because of their jjrolixity, but excellent in their rea- 
soning, and terse and effective in their diction. There 
are bitter tirades against the frailty of woman, and 
merciless attacks against the corruption of the clergy. 
Jvun de Meun's method in his satii'ieal passages is of ]>e- 
culiar interest to the student of Chaucer; for it is the 
very method so effectively emplo^'ed in the Canterbury 
Talcs. In the person of False-Seeming, one of the most 
masterful of Jean de jMeun's chai'ucterizations and the 
l)rototype of Chaucer's Friar and Pardoner, a friar 
himself is made to expose, prondly and boastfully, the 
iniquities of his order ; while in the person of the Du- 
enna, who becomes in Chaucer's hands the genial Wife 
of Bath, is exhibited all the sensuality and cunning 
craft which constitutes Jean de Meun's idea of woman. 
In Guillaume de Lorris one is conscious of a sweet 
and noble personality, coupled with a fairly true sense 
of artistic form and poetical exj^ression. One cannot 
read a thousand lines of Jean Clopinel without realiz- 
ing that he has to do with a masterful intellect. His 
personality is not lovable, but commanding. Unques- 
tionably inferior to Guillaume in artistic form, — for 
liis work seems often a mere hodge-podge of ideas, — he 



THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE 49 

as unquestionably surpasses liim in range and in intel- 
lectual scope. For the graceful delicacy of Guillaume's 
dii'tion, Jean de Meun offers a nervous, incisive, yet 
polished style, which is as superior to that of Guil- 
lannie as is Shakespeare to Spenser. 

This strange composite poem exerted in its own cen- 
tiuy, and in the two centuries following, an enormous 
influence on the literature of Northern Europe, and no 
inconsiderable influence south of the Alps. Its wide 
circulation is attested by the fact that nearly two hun- / 
dred manuscript copies have survived to the present | 
day, many of which arc found in England and in | 
Germany. It was eaidy translated into Flemish and 
into Italian, while somewhat later appeared the Eng- 
lisli version which is the subject of this chapter. In 
France it was kept before the public eye by its bitter 
antagonists no less than by its enthusiastic admirers. 
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that for two hun- 
dred 5'ears no important French author escaped its 
influence. In England its vogue was little less exten- i 
sive. Without its suggestion Chaucer would not have I 
been Chaucer, and English literature would have fol- j 
lowed a different channel. 

The reasons for this widespread po])ularity and far- 
reaching influence are not hard to fathon). The Ro- 
man is not, as is sometimes asserted, a great original 
creation. Guillaume did not invent the dream-vision 
form nor the use of allegory, any more than Petrarch 
invented the sonnet; the revolutionary doctrines of 
Jean de Meun did not spring unbegotten from his 
own brain. Those who will take the trouble to rend M. 
Ernest Langlois's monograph' on the subject will find 
thnt every significnnt feature of tlie ]K)em is paralleled 
in earlier works. The great achievement of Guillaume 
■^ Origir.es et Sources du Korr.an de la Rose, Pariss, 1S90. 



50 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

I de Lorris and Jean de Meim is that they assimilated 
I and then crystallized into masterful poetic expression 
I a literai-y form and a set of ideas which were already 
current and popular. Without Petrarch the sonnet 
might still have survived as a literary form ; but it 
could hardly have achieved the great vogue which it 
attained through his authority. It is a general law in 
literature that widespread and long-continned j^opu- 
larity is possible only when an idea already popular 
receives permanent expression at the hands of a master. 
The lloman de la Rose was immediately recognized 
as such a masterpiece, and became the medium through 
which was effectively transmitted an influence which 
might otherwise have spent itself ineffectually in a 
couple of generations. Another source of its wide ap- 
peal may be found in the fact of its dual and diverse 
authorship. The poem took its rise just before the 
dawn of the Renaissance. During the centuries which 
immediately followed, two tendencies, the mediaeval and 
the modern, were existing side by side. To those who 
clung to the old ideals, Guillaume de Lorris made a 
strong appeal ; while the free-thinkers of the Renais- 
sance could not but recognize a kindred soul in Jean 
de Meun. The poem was wide enough in its scope to 
appeal to all. Chaucer, for example, who exhibits in 
his own development the transition from the medi- 
seval to the modern, was first attracted by Guillaume 
de Lorris, and only later felt the full influence of Jean 
de Meun. 

The chief interest of the Roman de la Rose for the 
modern student lies in this its historical significance as 
an expression of the varying ideals of the later Middle 
Ages ; but it has its absolute interest as well. Any one 
who will read the poem through, either in the French 
original or in the excellent English translation by Mr- 



THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE 51 

F. S. Ellis,^ will find many passages of vivid and charm- 
ing description, of keen analysis, of telling satire, of 
much vital liuman interest, and of true literary power, 
to repay him for the many hours which even a huriied 
reading will demand." 

The English translation of the Homan de la 7?o.se, 
which is preserved in a single manuscript ^hg English 
in the Ilnnterian collection at Glasgow, was Version. 
first included among Chaucer's works in Thynne's edi- 
tion of 1532,^ and was until 1870 universally accepted 
as a genuine work of Chaucer. Since that date the 
question of its authenticity has been one of the most 
vexed problems of Chaucerian scholarshiia ; and even 
to-day scholars are not in full accord as to the solution. 

That Chaucer made a translation of some portion at 
least of the I^oman, we know on Chaucer's own author- 
ity. In the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women 
(B version, 328-381), the god of love says to Chaucer: — 

For in pleyn text, withouten nede of g-lose, 
Thou hast transhited the Eomaiince of the Rose, 
That is an heresye ageyns my lawe, 
And makest wjse folk fro me withdrawe.'* 

^ London, 1900. (The Temple Classics Series, J. M. Dent & Co. 3 
vols.) 

- The best editions of the French text are those of M. M^on, Paris, 
1H14, and F. Mit-hel, Paris, 1864. A new edition, which will doubtless 
supersede these, is pronii.sed by M. Ernest Langlois. The best literary 
study of the Roman is that by M. Langlois in the second volume of 
llistoire de la Langne et de la Litterature franraise, published under the 
direction of M. Petit de Julleville, Paris, lSi>G. Shorter and less de- 
tailed, but highly sugg-estive, is the chapter devoted to the Eoiiian in 
La Litt/rulure /ranraise au Moyen Age, by Gaston Paris, Paris, ISDO. 
Reference has been made in a previous note to M. Langlois's Oriyines 
et Sources dit Romdn de la Hose, Paris, IS'.K). 

** Thynne printed from a manuscript now lost, which, though some- 
what more accurate than the Hunterian MS., does not differ markedly 
from it. 

* Lydgrate, moreover, in the Fall of Princes, mentions the translation 
among other works of Chaucer : — 



52 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Two questions at once su^^gest themselves : Did Chau- 
cer ever complete his translation ? Is the fragmentary 
translation which we possess the work of Chaucer ? The 
first of these questions may be pretty safely answered in 
the negative. In the first place, the translation of so 
long a poem is a laborious and tedious task; and Chau- 
cer, as we well know, was only too likely to weary of an 
undertaking before it was half completed. In the second 
place, had so popular a poet as Chaucer completed a 
translation of so popular a poem as the Roman dc la 
Hose, it is highly im])robable that the work would 
have been allowed to perish.^ 

The first scholar to raise the second question, that 
as to Chaucer's authorship of the existing English ver- 
sion, was the late Professor F. J. Child of Harvard, 
in a communication to the Athenceum for December 3, 
1870 : ' I may add, that it will take a great deal more 
than the fact that the Rojnaunt of the Rose is printed 
in old editions, to make me believe that it is Chaucer's. 
The rhymes are not his, and the style is not his, unless 
he changed both extraordinarily as he got on in life. 
The translation is often in a high degree slovenl}^ The 
part after the break, from v. 5814 on, seemed to me, on 
a recent comparison with the French, better done than 
the middle ; and as the Bialacoil of the earlier portion 
is here called Fair-welcomyng,^;er/iaps this part belongs 
to a different version.' 

Professor Child did not pursue the question any fur- 
ther ; and it was several years before any detailed argu- 

And notably [he] did his businesso 
By great auiso his vvittes to dinpose, 
To translate the liomaynl oj the Rose. 

Quoted by Skeat, 1. 23. 

^ It is, pi'rlitips. worthy of remark that the Bomnunt of the Hose is not 
metitiontid in the list of works of evil tendency which Chancer re]>i>nts of 
having written in the ' retractation' at the end of the 1' arson's Tale, 



THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE 53 

niont against the Chaucerian authorship appeared in 
])iiiit. It was nearly twenty yeai'S before the impor- 
tant hint contained in his last sentence received fur- 
ther elaboration. The first important document in the 
controversy ajjpeared from the pen of Skeat in 1880,' 
in which the argument ai^ainst Chaucer's authorship 
of the translation is based mainly on three grounds : 
(1) The presence in the translation of imperfect rimes, 
particularly the riming of words ending in -y with 
words ending in -ye, such as do not appear in the poet's 
unquestioned works ; (2) the occurrence of words which 
belong distinctly to a dialect more northern than that 
of Chaucer ; (3) differences in the vocabulary of the 
translation from the vocabulary of Chaucer.^ 

Though the argument against Chaucer's authorship 
of the translation did not pass unchallenged,^ nothing 
more of importance appeared till 1888, when it was 
clearly proved that Child had been right in suspecting 
that tlie portion of the translation which follows the 
break at line 5810 is not by the author of the earlier 
portion.' 

1 C'liaucer^s Prioress's Tdle, etc., third edition, Oxford. 1S80. The 
essay is reprinted in the Chaucer Society's volume of Essays on Chau- 
cer, yiit. 4o0-451. That the question had already heen discussed is shown 
by Thomas Arnold's communication to The Academy, July 20, 1878, 
pp. (')<i, G7, and Skeat's answer, The Academy, August 10, 1878, p. 143. 

'^ Of these arcruments, the third is least sound. Cf . an article by Pro- 
fessor Cook in Modern Language Notes, 2. 14o-14G (1887). 

** The most important dissenting voice was that of Fick in Englische 
Studien, 9. l(il-l()7 (188<>), who argued tliat the impure rimes and 
northern forms were to be explained on the ground that the translation 
was a work of Chaucer's youth. 

* F. Lindner in Englische Studien, 11. 163-173. The argument is based 
on rime, on the ch.inge from Bialacoil to Fair-welcomyng, noticed by 
Cbild, and on a number of false translations in the second part. Lind- 
ner is not ready to attribute either section to Chaucer, but favors the 
first rather than the second. His article is in many particulars inv.ali- 
dati'd by the more thorough investigations of Kalnza. (See below.) In 
a review of Kaluza's work in Englische Sludieti, IS. 104-105, Lindner 



54 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

In the j-^ears 1892 and 1893 the controversy reached 
its cuhiiination. In his /Studies in Chaucer,^ pub- 
lished in 1892, Professor Lounsbury combated stoutly 
and at great length the arguments against Chaucer's 
authorship of the whole translation ; and in the same 
year he was ably answered by Piofessor Kittredge.^ In 
the year following, 1893, the whole question was put 
upon a new footing, and all preceding ai'guments were 
in a measure invalidated by Professor Kaluza.^ It is 
unnecessary to reproduce here in detail Kalnza's argu- 
ments, which a serious student of the question will read 
for himself; his conclusions alone need detain us. Ho 
has shown conclusively that the existing liomaunt of 
the Hose consists, not, as Child guessed and Lindner 
proved, of two dissimilar fragments, but of three. The 
first (Fragment A), including lines 1-1705, contains 
nothing in rime, dialect, or vocabulary to prevent its 
attribution to Chaucer. The second (Fragment B), 
lines 1705-5810, is much less faithful in its following 
of the French text, and includes within its limits nearly 
all of the false rimes and northern forms which had 
led earlier scholars to reject the whole translation. 
Fragment C, lines 6811 to end, returns in method of 
translation and in style to the manner of Fragment A, 

pracefully admits his errors, and assents fully to Kalnza's position. 
tSee Skeat's communication to The Academy for September 8, 18S8, 
pp. 153, 1&4. 

^ Vol. ii, pp. 3-1 fiO. Professor Lounsbury has never retreated from 
the position here maintained. He is, as far as the present writer knows, 
the only scholar who still asserts the Chaucerian authorship of the 
whole translation. 

2 Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 1. 1-65. See 
also Skeat in The Academy for February 21. 1892, pp. 20('., 207. 

^ Chaucer itnd der Sosenroman, Berlin, 1893. Kalnza hiwl previonslj 
commnnieated his discoveries to Furnivall, who in turn communicated 
them to The Academy for July .1, 1890, p. 11. See also Skeat's comran- 
nications to the same paper for July 19, 1890 (pp. 51, 52), and August 
15, 1891 (p. 137). 



THE ROM AUNT OF THE ROSE 55 

and oontains only a small nuniber of questionable rimes 
and forms. Dz\ Kaliiza reaches the conclusion that 
Fragments A anil C ai-e tlie work of Chaucer, and that 
Fragment B is the work of an unknown poet of north- 
ern diak'ct, who, imitating as well as he could the man- 
ner of Chaucer, set himself to com})lete Chaucer's 
unfinished work.^ The main contentions of Kaluza's 
study have been pretty generally accepted; and most 
scholars now agree that Fragment A is by Chaucer, and 
that Fragment B certainly is not. About Fragment C 
there is still much dispute, Professor Skeat declining to 
accept it as Chaucer's.- The present writer is inclined 
to agree with Kaluza in thinking it genuine.^ 

It may be held as fairly certain, then, that, intimate 
as was Chaucer's acquaintance with the whole of the 
Roman de la Hose, and great as was the influence it 
exerted upon him, he executed but a small part of his 
projected translation of the work, and that his unfin- 
ished version was later continued by some poet of 
Chaucer's school. 

It remains to ask at what period of his career Chau- 
cer's fragmentary translation was made. AVhile the 
whole of the existing translation was held as Chaucer's 
work, its imperfect rimes led students to attribute it 

' In Essays on Chaucer, published by the Chaucer Society, pp. 075-083, 
Skeat assigns the dialect of Fragrneiit B to ' some county not far from 
the Iluniber, as Lancashire, Yorkshire, or Lincolnshire.' The date of 
the frajftnent ho thinks to be later than 1400 and earlier than 1440. It 
has recently been iirg-ed by J. H. Lang-e in Englische Studlen, 29. 397- 
40.') (1901), that the author of Fragment B is Chaucer's disciple Lyd- 
gate. The argument is plausible, but not conclusive. Skeat has shown 
(Alhenoeum, June 0, 18.)(i, p. 747) that Lydgate was acquainted with 
Fragment A. 

2 Oxford Chawcr, 1. 1-20. 

* The latest artenipt to prove Chaucer's authorship for the ivhole 
translation is that of Mi.ss Louise Pound in Modern Language Notes, 11. 
92-102 (1S90). The argument, which is b;ised on the sentence-length 
in Chaucer's genuine poems and in the Romaunt, is hardly convincing. 



56 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

to the earliest period of the poet's activity. When, on 
the otlier hand, the whole work was considered spuri- 
ous, this argument ceased to operate, and the fact that 
the Romaunt is mentioned in the Prologue to the 
Legend of Good Women in close association with 
the Troilus led Ten Brink to the conclusion that 
Chaucer's supposedly lost translation belonged to a 
period only slightly earlier than his Troilus.^ To 
this conclusion Kaluza also assents.^ Though the ques- 
tion probably is not capable of final proof, the present 
writer is inclined to hold to the earlier view, that Chau- 
cer's translation belongs to the period of his youth. 
Though the portions of the work which may be attrib- 
uted to Chaucer are of a high degree of excellence, 
easy and spirited,^ they have not the power of his 
niaturer work. The translation is a good one, but not 
a great one. There are, moreover, in Fragment C at 
least, a number of imperfect rimes that can be accepted 
as Chaucer's only on the assumption that the work is 
immature. Finall}', it seems inherently more probable 
that an undertakins: of this character should belong to 
the period of the poet's apprenticeship rather than to 
that of his developed art.* The association of the work 
with Troilus may be sufficiently explained as due to 
the similarity in the spirit of the two works.^ 

1 History of English Literature (Eiig. trans.), 2. 70, 77 ; and Eng- 
lisrke Studien, 17. 9, 10. 

2 Chaucer unci der liosettroman, 1, 2. 

^ The first 1678 lines of the French poem are reprinted from Moon's 
edition in t^keat's Oxford Chaucer, 1. 90-1(54, parallel with Chaucer's 
version. The student is thns enabled to make his own comparisons 
between original and translation. The English version is but 27 lines 
longer than the French. 

* tekeat, apparently, continues to regard the Romaunt as an early 
work. Cf. the Oxford Chancer, 1. 11. 

^ For the date of tlie Eonumnt, see also Koch's The Chronology of 
Chaucer^ s Writings (Cliaucer kjociety), pp. 12-15. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE MINOR POEMS 

Though among the Minor Poems of Chancer are num- 
bered many of his latest as well as of his earliest pro- 
ductions, it is convenient to treat of them together in 
a single chapter. Nor is the departure from the chro- 
nological method which such treatment involves with- 
out its compensating advantages ; for in their variety 
of theme and tone, and even more in their wide metri- 
cal range, they constitute an excellent introduction to 
Cliaucer's longer and more sustained compositions. In 
the following pages the Minor Poeuis are considered 
severally in the a])j)roximately chronological order 
adopted in Professor Skeat's edition. 

I. AN A. B. C. 

Chaucer's A. B. C, a 'song according to the order 
of the letters of the alphabet,' is merely a translation, 
as literal as the exigencies of rime and rhythm would 
]M'rmit, of a hymn to the Virgin included in La Pele- 
r hinge dc la Vie Ilumalne of Guillaume de Deguille- 
ville, 'a Cistercian monk in the royal abbey of Chalis,' 
written about the year 1330. Of the date of Chaucer's 
translation we have no certain knowledge ; but from 
the clioice of subject and the manner of execution, it 
is safe to infer that it is among the poet's earliest 
works. It is merely a meritorious essay in verse compo- 
sition. The introductory statement in Sjieght's Chan- 
cer of 1602, whei-e the A. B. C. was first printed, 
to the effect that it was made, ' as some say, at the 



58 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Request of Blanch, Ducliesse of Lancaster, as a praier 
for her piiuat vse, being a woman in her religion very 
deiiout,' is not supported by any other evidence. The 
verse is iambic pentameter ; the stanza contains eight 
lines, with the rime-scheme abahhcbc. The stanza of 
Cliaucer'.s original contains twelve lines of octosyllabic 
verse, with only two rimes. 

II. THE COMPLAINT TO PITY 

The love-lorn squire, Aurelius, in the Franldlns 
Tale, tried to ease his heart by making ' manye layes, 
soiiges, compleintes, roundels, virelayes; ' and, ai)par- 
entl}', in his younger days, Chaucer had done the same. 
Whether the unhappy love expressed in the ' com- 
plaint' and described again at the beginning of the 
Booh of the Duchess was a real and deep passion 
or not, we have no way of knowing. Don Quixote, 
when he would make himself a knight-errant complete, 
provided himself with a Dulcinea del Toboso whom 
he might serve as lady-love; and it is quite possible 
that when Chaucer would launch himself as a courtly 
])(iet, he found it expedient to do the same. Still we 
nuist not assume the truth of such a hypothesis merely 
because the expression of this love is clothed in arti- 
ficial and conventional forms. Personally, I find the 
idea of a hopeless love, protracted through eight long 
years, out of harmony with the eminent sanity of 
Chaucer's nature. But who shall say ? 

We do not know the date of the Comiilaint to 
T'iti/, nor do we know whether or not it was original 
with Chaucer.^ It is a conventional love poem on the 
Fi-ench model, and is in all probability one of Cliau- 
cer's earliest extant works. It is interesting chiefly as 

^ Professor Skeat's attempt to find a parallel for tke personification 
of Pity in the Thehais of Statins seems unnecessary. 



THE MINOR POEMS 59 

he'uv^ probably the^earliest^jppearanee in English verse 
of the seven-line stanza, with rime-scheme ahahbcc, 
known as the rime-royal, which was later used in 
Troilus and Criacydc. 

III. THE BOOK OF THE DUCHESS 

The Book of the Duchess^ or the ' Deeth of Blannche 
the Duchesse,' as it is called in the Prologue to the 
Legend of Good Women, is the first of Date and 
Chaucer's poems to which a definite date Sources. 
can be assigned. In September, 1369, died the Lady 
Blanche, daughter of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, and 
first wife of Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt; and soon 
after her death, we may suppose, was written the poem 
which celebrates her virtue and bewails her loss. John 
of Gaunt and his lady were both twenty-nine years old ; 
and if we accept the 3'ear 1340 as the approximate date 
of Chaucer's birth, this also was the age of the poet. 
Twenty-nine he was at least, perhaps older, so that if 
this be his first original work of any length, — and its 
immaturity lends credence to the belief, — Chaucer's 
genius was slow in its development. Keats, we remem- 
ber, was but twenty-six when death took him away. 

Chaucer's literary apprenticeship was worked out in 
the school of the lioman de la Hose, his translation 
of the poem being very likely his first serious venture 
into the field of letters; and the Book of the Duchet^s, 
like other work of his earliest period, is strongly under 
the influence of the allegorical love ])oetry of France. 
From that soui^e, directly or indii-ectly, comes the 
whole machinery of the poem, its dream and vision, 
its singing birds, its flowery meads; from tlie same 
source are drawn some of the ideas also. Were not 
the Willis of the chamber in which the poet dreamed 
that he awoke 



60 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Peynted, bothe text and glose, 
Of al the Roniauiice of the Rose ? 

Of the same school of poetry is the Frenchman, Guil- 
laume de Machault (1300?-13T7), and from him, too, 
Chaucer has borrowed here and there. ^ Machault's 
Z)it de la Fontaine Amoiirensc^ which Chaucer cer- 
tainly knew, contains a long paraphrase of the story 
of Ceyx and Alcyone; and it has been asserted that 
this suggested the Proem of the Booh of the Duchess? 
It is quite likely that Chaucer did consult Machault's 
version of the story ; but it is clearly demonstrable 
that he also went directly to Ovid, and that he is more 
indebted to the Latin than to the French. Thoush 
the general spirit of the Booh of the Duchess is of 
the French school, its plot, if it may be said to have 
a plot, is Chaucer's own. Of its 1334 lines, not more 
than a hundred have been traced to a definite French 
original.^ 

It is possible that the story of Ceyx and Alcyone 
was originally an inde])endent work. In the Prologue 
of the Man of Law s Tale, at any rate, we read that 

In youthe he made of Ccys and Alcion; 

but this may very well refer to the Booh of tJ.e 
Dvchciis, which, as we know, was made in Chauccrs 
youth. 

It is as a work of the poet's youth, a mark from wliicli 
one may measuj-e his subsequent literary development, 
Literary that the Booh of the Duchess deserves at- 
■'^"' tention. Intrinsically its value is but slight. 

It is not lacking in beautiful and effective passages ; 

1 See Sandras, Etude sur G. Chaucer, 291-294. 

^ The significant portions of the Dit de la Fontaine Amoureiise are 
given by 'J'en Brink, iSiuf/i'en, 197-205. Ovid's version is found inMcta- 
7/iorplio.ses, 11. 410-74S. 

<* Cf. Lounsbnry's Studies in Chaucer, 2, 212. 



THE MINOR POEMS Gl 

but, taken as a whole, it furnishes but weary reading. 
Distinctly graceful and pleasing is the story of Ceyx 
and Alcyone, when judged purely on its own merits as 
an imitation of Ovid; but so slight is its connection 
witli the main theme of the poem, that it constitutes 
a serious breach of artistic unity. By far the most 
charming ])assage of the whole work is the account 
of the poet's supposed awakening, with the merry sing- 
ing of the birds without the j)ictured windows of his 
chamber broken by the sudden blast of the huntsman's 
horn, all the varied life and motion of the hunt, the 
flowers and trees and wild beasts of the greenwood. 
It is not till the lonely knight begins to speak that 
the poem sinks to its true level of mediocrity. Not 
only are his speeches intolerably long, they are also 
essentially artificial. If he may be forgiven his con- 
ventional diatribe against malicious fortune, and his 
strange conceit of the game of chess, features bor- 
rowed from Machault, it is hard to overlook his unin- 
termitted pedantry. He ransacks the treasure-house of 
classical antiquity, and the Bible as well, to furnish 
forth fit comparisons for his loss, and, not content with 
this, stops now and then to explain a more recondite 
allusion. He tells how he had made many songs to win 
his lady's love : — 

Altho^h 1 con(le not make so wel 
Soiij^es, lie kuovve tlie art al, 
As coude Lamolvcs sone Tnl)al, 
That fond out first tlie ait of songe; 
For, as his brothers lianiers ronge 
Upon his anvelt up and donn, 
Therof he took tlie firste soun; 
But Grekes seyn, Pictagoras, 
That he the firste Knder was 
Of the art; Aurora telleth so, 
I?ut tlicrof no fors, of iit-in Ivvo, 



62 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

It is Chaucer, of course, and not the bereaved knight, 
who is thus jeah)us of his reputation for philological 
accuracy. ' But therof no fors, of hem two ; ' it is in 
either case a serious lapse from literary taste. Lapses 
of this sort Chaucer never wholly outgrew. 

In passing judgment so harshly on the long speeches 
of the knight, some exception must be made for the pas- 
sage in which he describes the charms, spiritual as well 
as physical, of the ' gode faire Whyte.' Of this Lowell 
has spoken as ' one of the most beautiful portraits of 
a woman that was ever drawn.' ' Full of life it is,' he 
continues, ' and of graceful health, with no romantic 
hectic or sentimental languish. It is such a figure as yoi\ 
would never look for in a ballroom, but might expect 
to meet in the dewy woods, just after sunrise, when you 
were hunting for late violets.' ^ But even here one is 
tempted to cry out on the score of prolixity. 

Some attempt is made to create a sort of suspense by 
withholding till the very end the fact that the knight's 
loss of his lady is the irreparable loss of death; and 
after the long-drawn-out speeches of the poem, a dis- 
tinctly striking effect is produced by the abruptness of 
the end, with its utter restraint : — 

' She is deed ! ' ' Nay ! ' ' Yis, by my trouthe ! ' 
' Is that your los ? by God, liit is routhe ! ' 

I cannot agree with the majority of critics who see in 
this ending proof that Chaucer tired of his woik an<l 
ended the poem hastily ; it seems to me rather a ijiroke 
of deliberate art. 

In its lack of good proportion and its frequent lapses 
in taste, in the occasional roughness of metre which sug- 
gests the earlier alliterative line, in its lack of humor and 
delicate irony, — for which, to be sure, there is little 
opportunity, — we see that the Book of the Duchess 

^ Conversations on some of the Old Poets, p. 98. 



THE MINOR POEMS 63 

stands at the begiiinint:^ of Chaneer's development. In 
its graceful treatment of nature, its well-mauaged tran- 
sitions, its skillful use of dialogue, in its j)ortrait of noble 
womanhood and its occasional i)athos, it gives promise 
of the splendid development to come. 

IV. THE COMPLAINT OF MARS 
The Complaint of 3fars is a conventional poem, 
supposed to be sung by a bird on St. Valentine's Da}', 
in which mythology and astronomy are curiously blent 
together to the greater glory of illicit love. There is 
nothing to indicate the date of its composition, nor 
have we any certain knowledge whether or not it was 
intended to celebrate an actual intrigue ; though the 
old copyist, Shirley, appended to his manuscript copy 
of the piece the statement that some men say that it 
was made about ray Lady of York, daughter to the 
King of Spain, and my Lord Huntingdon, sometime 
Duke of Exeter. The lady named was sister-in-law to 
Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt, while my Lord Hunt- 
ingdon afterwards married John of Gaunt's daughter, 
Elizabeth. Shirley further assures us in his heading to 
the poem that it was made at John of Gaunt's com- 
mand. The Complaint has little claim to attention save 
for the fact that a somewhat difficult nine-line stanza 
is handled with a good deal of skill. 

V. THE PARLIAMENT OF FOWLS 
On the twentieth day after Christmas, in Janiiary, 
1382, King Richard was married in the chapel of the 
palace at Westminster to the Lady Anne of 
Bohemia, a daughter of the Emperor Charles 
IV and a sister of Wenccslaus, King of Bohemia, ' who 
at this period had taken the title of Emperor of Rome.' 
Richard was but fifteen years old, and his bride was 



64 TTIE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

but a few months his senior. For upwards of a year, 
Froissart tells us, Ricliard had been in treaty with 
King Wenceslans, and the Lady Anne had been pre- 
viously contracted to two German princes ; so that tlie 
course of this diplomatic courtship had not been a very 
smooth one. 

Though we cannot assei't the fact v/ith positive as- 
surance, it seems very probable that it is the events of 
this royal courtship which Chaucer celebrates allegori- 
cally in his Parliamciit of Fowls. The ' forniel eglo,' 
which Nature holds on her hand, — 

Of sliap the gentileste 
That ever she among hir werkes foude, 
The most beiiigue and the goodlieste, — 

would then represent the Lady Anne. The ' tercel 
egle,' ' the foul royal,' who declares his love for her, 
would stand for Richard, while the other two eagles, 
' of lower kinde,' would be the two earlier suitors. The 
year of respite which Dame Nature grants, in which 
the ' formel egle ' is to choose between her suitors, 
corresponds with the period over which the diplomatic 
negotiations were protracted. Chaucer is evidently cele- 
brating a courtship in high life, and no other court- 
ship of the period so well accords with the incidents 
of the poem. The maturity of Chaucer's literary art 
in the poem, furthermore, agrees very well v/ith a date 
as late as 1382. That it cannot have been written 
Inter than 1385 is proved by the mention of it in tlie 
Prologue to the Legend of Good Women. It is not 
at all imjios.'iible that the delicate flattery of the Ptir- 
Uame7it of Fowls may have been directly responsible 
for the favor which Queen Anne showed to Chaucer 
three years later.* 

Though its general form as a poem of the dream- 
1 Cf. p. Ul. 



THE MINOR POEMS 65 

vision type associates the Parliament of Fowls with 
tlie essentially medisBval, French models of 
Chaucer's earlier period, such as the Ro- 
7/i(nmt of the Hose, and though the conception of 
an assembly of fowls is probably of French origin,' the 
]>()em shows overwhelming proof of the influence of 
the new culture which came to Chaucer us a result of 
his Italian journeys of 1373 and 1378. 

After four introductory stanzas, Chaucer devotes fifty- 
six lines to a synopsis of Cicero's Somnivni Scipionls, 
which he was reading before he fell asleep and dreamed 
his dream. This woik, a part of the De llepuhlica^ 
was not known to Chaucer and to his contemporaries 
in its original setting, for the De Reinihlica was not 
recovered till a later date, but was preserved as an ex- 
tract in a copious commentary of Macrobius, a gram- 
marian and philosopher of the fifth century. This book 
was a very popular one with Chaucer and with the 
Middle Ages in general, and exerted no small influence 
on the Divine Comedy of Dante. The extract from 
Cicero, if not the laborious commentary of Macrobius, 
is fully worthy of the popularity it achieved. 

In the section which follows on the synopsis of the 
Somnium Scipionis, the predominant influence is that 
of Dante, from whom the inscription over the gate 
to the garden of love is freely adapted ; though one 
stanza, beginning with the line, — 

u^ The wery hunter, slepinge in his bed, — 

is translated from the late Latin poet Claudian. For 
the description of the garden and its delights Clisies 176- 
294) Chaucer is closely indebted to the Teseide of 
Boccaccio. It was at about tliis time, apparently, that 

1 As Skeat has noticed, one of the fables of Mario de Franee is en- 
titled ' Li parlemeus des Oiseax por faire Hoi.' Oxford Chaucer, 1. 75. 



66 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Chaucer wrote his Palamon and Arcite^ known to us 
as the Knight's Tale ; and findings that the stanzas 
of the Teselde hei*e utilized were not necessary for his 
k>ng'er work, he thriftily turned them to account in the 
Parliament of Fowls. 

Tlie description of the Goddess Nature surrounded 
by all the birds of the air is adapted, as Chaucer him- 
self tells us, from the De Planctu Naturoe of Alanus 
de Insulis, a Latin poet and divine of the twelfth cen- 
tury. In Alanus, iiowever, the birds are merely depicted 
on the robe which Nature wears. As for the parlia- 
ment itself, with its long debate, which constitutes the 
real substance of the poem, that is, so far as we know, 
Chaucer's own original production. 

As the sources of the poem show a twofold influence, 
that of the departing Middle Age and that of the new 
Italian culture, so too in its literary workmanship one 
Literary ^^^^Y detect the transition from the more con- 
Art, ventional poetry of Chaucer's earlier period 
to the work of his maturer genius. Structurally consid- 
ered, the work is far from perfect ; for the real action 
of the piece does not begin till nearly three hundred 
lines have rolled melodiously by. Beautiful as is the 
description of the garden of love, its length is both 
relatively and absolutely extravagant. Quite unne- 
cessary to the action is the synopsis of the Somnivm 
Scipionis with which the poem begins, an unfortu- 
nate bit of introductory machinery which Chaucer also 
employs, at greater length, in his earlier Book of the 
Pnche^s. 

It is not till Chaucer has finished Ids introductions, 
and has left his authoi's well behind him, that the con- 
ventional gives place to the natural, and the poet's 
genius plavs freely. The graceful and charming conceit 
of Dame Nature on her hill of flowers, with all the birds 



THE MINOR POEMS 07 

about lier come to choose their mates, is well executed 
and well sustained. If we fail to enter with mut'li 
enthusiasm into the emotions of the three rival eagles 
as they plead their amorous causes, we are at any rate 
highly entertained by the varying counsels of the four 
estates in this feathered parliament. 

The birds of prey, who constitute the peers of the 
roalm, take the matter quite seriously. If necessary, 
they are willing to see in the dispute fit cause for war. 
The fowls of lower degree, the hourgeois birds who feed 
on worms, the mercantile birds who occupy their busi- 
ness in the water, those of agricultural pursuit who feed 
on seeds, care more for their own well-being and for 
the expeditious transaction of business than for any 
punctilio of honor. 

But she wol love him, lat him love another ! 

cries the unsentimental goose, as spokesman for the 
water-fowl, while the cuckoo, of the worm-eating estate, 
goes even further : — 

* So I,' quod he, * may have my make in pees, 
I recche not how longe that ye stryve ; 
Lat ech of hem be soleyu al hir lyve.' 

From these radical views the turtle dove, representing 
the more poetical class of those who feed on seeds, is 
inclined to dissent : — 

Yet let him serve hir ever, til he be deed, 

an opinion which the duck considers merely laughable. 
Though characterized quite humanly, Chaucer does 
not suffer us to forget that the parliament is only one 
of fowls, and the sudden ' Kek, kek ! kukkow, quek, 
quek ' which breaks upon us serves as a delicious bit 
of humorous realism, after the passionate speeches of 
the three tercel eagles. As in its general structure the 



68 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Parliament of Foiols leads us to comparisons with the 
Book of the Duchess which preceded it, so in its treat- 
ment of birds who speak like men it leads us forward 
to the more finished art of the Nuns Priest' s Tale. 

VI. A COMPLAINT TO HIS LADY 

Chaucer's Com.plabit to Jus Lady is apparently no 
more than a series of experiments in verse form. Be- 
ginning with two stanzas of seven lines, it shifts into 
the terza rima of Dante, and thence into a comjdex 
stanza of ten lines, with rime-scheme aahaabcddc. This 
is the first appearance of the terza rima in English 
verse, and probably its only appearance until English 
literature was again Italianized in the days of Wyatt 
and Surrey. As Mr. Heath suggests, the poem should 
not be taken too seriously.^ It may have been written 
shortly after Chaucer's Italian journey of 1373. 

VII. ANELIDA AND ARCITE 

The fragment of Anellda and yl?'ci^e ponsists of a 
Proem of three stanzas, twenty-seven stanzas of seven 
lines each of the ' Story,' followed by a Complaint in 
fourteen stanzas of very elaborate metrical construction. 
After the Complaint, the 'Story 'is resumed, but is 
broken off after a single stanza. Probably the work 
was never completed. 

In line 21 Chaucer gives as his sources ' Stace, and 
after him Corinne.' Stanzas 4-7 are indeed from the 
Thebais of Statins; but who 'Corinne' may be, we do 
not know, — very likely the name is one of Chaucer's 
sheer inventions, — nor do we know any source for the 
story. But for six stanzas of the poem (1-3, 8-10) 
a source is easily discoverable. They are taken ivotut 
the first and second books of Boccaccio's Teseide, the 
*■ Globe Chaucer, p. xxxvii. 



THE MINOR POEMS 69 

poem which served as the foundation of the Knight^ s 
Talc. Since stanzas from the Teseide are also found 
in tlie Parliament of Foiols and in Troilus, it is nat- 
ural to infer that these three poems were written at 
about the same time, when Chaucer was busy with 
his Palamon and Arcite, later known as the Kiiight's 
Tale ; that is, soon after the year 1380. 

Since the poem is a mere frajj^ment, it is not possible 
to say much of its literary qualities, save to call atten- 
tion to the metrical skill and pleasing effect of the 
Complaint which is incorporated into it. Neither can 
we, while in ignorance of its source, venture to guess 
how the story would have been concluded. Though also 
a Theban at the court of Theseus, the Arcite of this 
poem has nothing to do with the Arcite of the Jvnighfs 
Tale. It is not impossible that Chaucer may have 
intended to celebrate some love story of the English 
court, and that being busy with the Teseide, he chose 
to shadow forth his real personages under names bor- 
rowed from the court of Theseus, inventing the name 
Corinne to increase the obscurity of his allegory. Frag- 
ment as it is, the piece gives unquestioned proof of 
Chaucer's power. 

VIII. Chaucer's words unto adam 
T know no better way to illustrate Chaucer's half-seri- 
ous, half-playful address to his copyist, than by quoting 
the words of Petrarch to a friend to whom he wished 
to send a copy of his own work on the Life of Soli- 
tude: ' I have tried ten times and more to have it copied 
in such a way that, even if the style should not please 
either tlie ears or the mind, the eyes might yet be grati- 
fied by the form of the letters. But the faithfulness 
and industry of the copyists, of whom I am constantly 
complaining and with which you are familiar, have, in 



70 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

spite of all my earnest efforts, frustrated my wishes. 
These fellows are verily the plague of noble minds. 
What I have just said must seem incredible. A work 
written in a few months cannot be copied in so many 
years ! The trouble and discouragement involved in 
the case of more important books is obvious. . . . Such 
is the ignorance, laziness, or arrogance of these fel- 
lows, that, strange as it may seem, they do not repro- 
duce what you give them, but M'rite out something quite 
different.' i 

One may assume that the poem was written soon 
after Troilus and Soece, which it mentions in the 
second line. It is written in the seven-line stanza of 
Troilus. 

IX. THE FORMER AGE 

Poets have always been ready to sing the praises of 
long ago, and to Chaucer, living in an age of continual 
warfare, of corruption and oppression, the ' blisful lyf, 
paisible and swete, led by the peples in the former age,' 
may well have appealed very strongly. Doubtless he 
was wise enough and practical enough to see the fal- 
lacies of a general ' return to nature,' and to recognize 
that civilizati(m has brought its blessings as well as its 
curses ; but he was also philosopher enough to see that 
' covetyse ' was really at the bottom of all the most 
serious evils of his day, as it is of our own. The poem 
is founded on the fifth metre of the second book of 
Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy., and may pro- 
fitably be compared with Chaucer's prose translation 
of the same passage. About twenty lines of TJie For- 
mer Age are directly taken from Boethius, wliile the 
remainder are Chaucer's own expansion of the theme. 
There is nothing to indicate the date of its composition. 

^ Robinson and Rolfe, Petrarch, the First Modern Scholar and Man 
of Letters, New York, 180!), pp. 27, 2a 



THE MINOR POEMS 71 

The stanza coxisists of eight lines, with rime-scheme 
ahahhchc. 

X. FORTUNE 

Because the poem called Fortune^ like TJie Former 
A(/c, is little more than a restatement of the teachings 
of Boethius/ it must not be inferred that it is a mere 
literary toiir de force. Indirectly at first through the 
Roman de la Hose, and later from the Consolation 
of Philosophy itself, Chaucer assimilated the philo- 
sophy of Boethius into his own soul, and made it the 
guiding principle of his life. Trite though they be, the 
tlioughts expressed in Fortune are noble thoughts; 
and they are nobly spoken forth, not only with art, but 
with conviction. Fortune may govern all things with 
her fickleness, but ' man is man and master of his 
fate.' Not only may a true man defy Fortune, he may 
learn from her frowns which of his friends are friends 
indeed, which things in life are really enduring. Before 
the poem closes, its stoicism becomes a Christian stoi- 
cism. The very uncertainty of things terrestrial, which 
we, 'ful of lewednesse,' call Fortune, is but part of 
the scheme of righteous Providence : — 

The hcvene hath propretee of sikernesse, 
This world hath ever resteles travayle; 
Thy laste day is end of rayii iutresse: 
In general, this reule may nat fayle. 

Whether the poem was called forth by some partic- 
ular reverse of fortune or not cannot be known ; but 
the definiteness of the refrain, — 

And eek thou hast thy bests frend alyve, — 

and of the appeal to certain princes in the envoy, seems 
to suggest that this may have been the case. But who 

1 Cf. Boethius, Book II, Proses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, and Metre 1. Here 
and there the influence of Boethius seems to be at second hand throupi-h 
the Roman de la Rose. See ISkeat's notes, Oxford Chaucer, 1. r)42-547. 



72 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

the friend may be, and what the occasion, it were idle 
to inquire. 

Apart from the nobility of its thought and the ele- 
( , vation of its language, the poem is remarkable for the 
I 1 metrical skill which it betrays. The poem consists of 
I ^ three balades and an envoy. Each of the balades has 
' three stanzas of eight lines each, with the rime-scheme 
ababbcbc, and the rimes are identical in each of the 
three stanzas; so that the rime 'b' is repeated twelve 
times, while the rimes ' a ' and ' c ' appear six times 
each ; yet there is scarcely a line in which one is con- 
scious of any conflict between versification and thought. 

XI. MERCILESS BEAUTY 

In the Prologue to the Lege7id of Good Women, it 
is said that Chaucer made many a hymn for love's holi- 
days, — 

That liigliten Balades, Roundels, Virela3'es. 

The roundel is a highly elaborate verse form, borrowed 
from France. The stanza contains thirteen lines, with 
rime-scheme abbabababbabb, in which lines one and 
two ai"e repeated as lines six and seven, and are again 
repeated with line three to form the last three lines 
of the stanza. The three roundels of this poem and the 
one near the end of the Pai^Hament of Fowls are the 
only roundels of Chaucer preserved to us. 3ferciless 
Beauty is a charmingly graceful, but entirely conven- 
tional, love poem, after the French school, and perhaps 
imitated from a French original.* 

XII. TO ROSEMOUNDE 

The balade To Rosemounde was discovered by Pro- 
fessor Skeat in 1891, appended to a manuscript of 
Troilus and Criseyde in the Bodleian Library. This 

^ See Skeat, Oxford Chaucer, 1. o4S. 



THE MINOR POEMS 73 

may indicate that it was written at the same time as 
the longer poem ; but whenevei* written, it breathes 
the same spirit of mingled seriousness and irony. It is 
thoroughly characteristic of Chaucer's developed art. 
There are three stanzas of eight lines each, with rime- 
scheme ahdhhchc, the rimes of the first stanza being 
repeated in the second and third. 

XIII. TRUTH 

The balade of Truth is the best answer one may 
give to the charge that Chaucer was incapable of ' high 
seriousness.' Though suggested in part by Boethius, 
the poem is essentially original, and expresses, I think, 
the substance of Chaucer's criticism of life. Like Lano-- 
land and Wiclif, Chaucer was fully conscious of the 
evils of his time; nor was he, as one might hastily infer 
from the humorous treatment of these evils in the 
Canterbury Tales^ indifferent to their gravity. When 
Jacques invites Oilando to sit down and 'rail against 
our mistress the world, and all our misery,' Orlando 
answers : ' I will chide no breather in the world but 
myself, against whom I know most faults.' Orlando's 
attitude seems to have been Shakespeare's attitude, as 
it was certainly Chaucer's. ' Werk wel thyself, that 
other folk canst rede.' The world is bad, but who am 
I, to set it right? the poet asks. Shall I not merely 
fill my own soul with storm and tempest, and all the 
while be striving 'as doth the crokke with the wal'? 
The poet is gifted with a delicate and sensitive soul, 
which, ke})t untainted, can give forth life and beauty 
to his own age and to the ages in store. To spend it 
all in mad protest against a wicked world — what shall 
it profit? Fleeing from the press, renouncing the 
'strenuous life' to dwell with truth, Chaucer showed 
his age its true likeness, its good and evil. The world 



74 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

might listen or not, as it pleased. After all there is a 
power stronger than we, making for righteousness : — 

Daunte thyself, tliat dauntest otheres dede ; 
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. 

But beyond all this, what is this world that we should 
struo-gle so to set it straight? 

Her nis non boom, her nis but wildernesse: 
Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal I 
Know tliy contree, look up, thank God of al; 
Hold the bye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede; 
And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. 

The poem consists of three stanzas and an envoy, all 
in the seven-line stanza, with the same rimes reappear- 
ing in each stanza and in the envoy.* 

XIV. GENTILESSE 
Though borrowed in its general conception, like 
Truth, from Boethius, and in part also from the 
Roman de la Rose, the balade of Gentilesse ex- 
presses Chaucer's own conviction as to true gentility, 
a conviction which is expressed again in the Wife of 
Roth's Tale. Trite enough in a democratic age like the 
present, these thoughts were more novel in the day of 
Chaucer, particularly when they came from one who 
dwelt near the court, that great centre of all the 'sol- 
emn plausibilities ' of life. There are three seven-line 
stanzas, with rimes repeated throughout. 

XV. LACK OF STEADFASTNESS 

If the philosophy of ' Flee fro the prees ' be accepted 
as representing Chaucer's true conviction, it is not sur- 
prising to find that he very seldom assumes the propliet's 
mantle, and attempts to scourge, save with the lash of 
comedy, the evils and abuses of his time. One of the 
^ For further remarks on this poem, cf. above, pp. 29, 30. 



THE MINOR POEMS 75 

few exceptions to this rule is the vigorous balade, with 
its envoy to King Richard, entitled Lach of Stead- 
fastness. Covetise and the love of meed, the ' lust that 
folk have in dissensioun,' the decay of virtue and of 
mercy — these are the evils which are bringing the 
world to naught ; and in this opinion Chaucer is at one 
with Langland, with Wiclif, and with Gower. 

To assign even an approximate date for the composi- 
tion of the poem is very difficult. In the Tanner manu- 
script of the minor poems it is headed with the words : 
' Balade Royal made by oure laureal poete of Albyon 
in hees laste yeeres.' Following this hint, Chaucerian , 
scholars have generally assigned it to the years between 
1393 and 1399, during which Richard succeeded in 
alienating the loyalty and affection of most of his sub- 
jects. Mr. Pollard, however, suggests, with a good deal 
of reason, that from a dependent of the court such 
advice to his sovereign would have been prudent only 
at an earlier period, in 1389 perhaps, ' when the young 
Richard was taking the government into his own hands, 
and throwing over the tutelage of his guardian uncles 
with the support of all his people's hopes.' ^ 

Professor Skeat asserts that the general idea of the 
poem was taken from Boethius, Book II, Metre 8; but 
the indebtedness, if any, was very slight. The poem is 
essentially original. The metre is the same as that of 
Truth. 

XVI. ENVOY TO SCOGAN 

The date of the playful Envoy to Scogan may, 
perhaps, be determined by the allusion in the sec- 
ond stanza to ' this deluge of pestilence,' which has 
been interpreted as a reference to the unusually heavy 
rains which, according to Stowe's Annales, fell in the 
autumn of 1393. ' Such abundance of water fell in 
1 Preface to the Globe Edition, p. xlix. 



76 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

October, that at Bury in Snffolke the church was full 
of water, and at Newmarket it bare downe walles of 
houses, so that men and women hardly escaped drown- 
ing.' ^ This deluge, Chaucer suggests, was due to the 
tears of Venus shed over Scogan's impiety in love. The 
date 1393 would agree, moreover, with the closing 
stanza, in which Chaucer speaks of himself ' in solitarie 
wilderness ' at the mouth of the Thames, that is at 
Greenwich, whither he had been dispatched in 1390 on 
a commission to repair the banks of the river. That 
the poem was written in Chaucer's later years is evi- 
dent from his humorous mention of those ' that ben 
hore and rounde of shape,' in the number of whom he 
includes himself. 

Of Scogan we know little. He is probably the 
Henry Scogan, Squire, who was later tutor to the sons 
of Henry IV. In a balade of his own, written. Professor 
Skeat thinks, ' not many j'ears before 1413,' Scogan 
refers to Chaucer as ' my maistre Chaucier,' and pro- 
ceeds to quote entire Chaucer's balade of GcntUease. 
There are six stanzas and an envoy, all in the seven- 
line stanza. The rimes in each stanza are different. 

XVII. ENVOY TO BUKTON 

The date of the thoroughly characteristic Envoy 
to Buhton is determined by the allusion in line 23 
to the undesirability of being taken prisoner in Fries- 
land, whither a company of English was dispatched in 
August, 1396, to the aid of William of Hainault.^ A 
late date is further indicated by the reference to the 
Wife of Bath. Of Bukton we know only that a Peter 
de Buketon was the king's escheator for the County of 

^ Oxford Chaucer, 1. 557. 

^ See Froissart's Chronicles, Book IV, chap. 78. In the preceding 
chapter we read that ' The Frieslanders are a people void of honor 
and understanding, and show mercy to none who fall in their way.' 



THE MINOR POEMS 77 

York in 1397. Aj)parently, Bukton was meditating a 
second marriage. Chaucer's sound advice on the sub- 
ject, which seems to he at least half serious, need not 
be taken as proof that his own marriage had been par- 
ticularly nnhappy. It is clear, however, that Chaucer, 
now a widower, had no intention of falling again into 
' swich dotage ' if he could help it. There are three 
stanzas and an envoy of eight lines each, with rime- 
scheme ahuhhchc. 

XVIII. THE COMPLAINT OF VENUS 

The Complaint of Venus consists of three bal- 
ades, loosely joined together, and supplemented by an 
envoy. As Chaucer himself tells us in the envoy, the 
balades are translated from the French of Sir Otes de 
Graunsoun, a poet of Savoy, contemporary with Chau- 
cer, As may be learned from a comparison with the 
French text, which is printed in Skeat's Oxford Chau- 
cer,^ the translation does not ' folowe word by word,' 
but is rather free. Since this complaint is associated 
in many copies with the Complaint of iJ/ars, it has 
been assumed that the princess addressed in the envoy 
is the Princess Isabel of Spain and Duchess of York, 
whose love is celebrated in the earlier piece. If this 
be true, the date of composition will fall between 1390 
and 1394 ; for in the latter year Princess Isabel died, 
and in the envoy Chancer speaks of himself as already 
dulled by old age. The poem, which is of the conven- 
tional type, is chiefly interesting for its elaborate rime- 
sciieme, admirably handled. Each of the three balades 
consists of three eight-line stanzas, riming ahahbccb, 
witii repeated rimes. The envoy has ten lines, riming 
aahaahhaab. 

1 I. -100-404. See also the articles on Graunsoun by Dr. A. Piag-et, 
who Orst discovered the French originals, in Romania, 19. 23T-2G9, 403- 
4iS. 



78 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

XIX. THE COMPLAINT OF CHAUCER TO HIS EMPTY 
PURSE 

This delightful poem, which with delicate humor 
a))plie3 the conventional language of amorous poetry 
to an empty purse, is probably among Chaucer's latest 
compositions. The envoy, at any rate, addressed to 
Henry IV as ' conquerour of Brutes Albioun,' cannot 
have been written earlier than September 30, 1399, 
wlien Parliament formally acknowledged, by ' free elec- 
cioun,' Jlenry's right to the throne. It is, of course, 
possible that the preceding stanzas had been written at 
an earlier time. It is pleasant to know that this deli- 
cate appeal for help met with almost immediate reply. 
On October 3 Chaucer received an additional pension 
grant of forty marks from the royal treasury. There are 
three seven-line stanzas, with repeated rimes, and an 
envoy of five lines, riming aabba. 

XX. PROVERBS 
The two Proverbs attributed to Chaucer by the man- 
uscripts are not of sufficient value to merit any discus- 
sion. Each proverb contains four octosyllabic lines, 
riming abab. 

XXI. AGAINST WOMEN UNCONSTANT 
Though there is no sufficient external evidence to 
prove this poem one of Chaucer's, it is so thoroughly 
Chaucerian in manner, and withal so charming and 
graceful, that one is strongly inclined to think that the 
manuscripts and the early editions are right in asso- 
ciating it with his genuine work. The idea of the poem 
and its refrain are from the French of Machault, an 
author with whom Chaucer was thoroughly familiar. 
The metre is Chaucer's favorite seven-line stanza, with 
repeated rimes. 



THE MINOR POEMS 79 

XXII. AN AMOROUS COMPLAINT 
As in the case of the preceding poem, there is no 
satisfactory evidence that An Amorous Complaint is 
by Chaucer, though it is certainly in his manner. The 
poem has not sufficient excellence to make the question 
au important one. The seven-line stanza is employed. 

XXIII. A BALADE OF COMPLAINT 
This poem, like the preceding, is of the conventional 
erotic tyi)e. It occurs in but one manuserii)t, and is not 
there attributed to Chaucer. Though superior to An 
Amorous Complaint in art, it is not a poem which we 
need consider very seriously. There are three seven- 
line stanzas, without repetition of rime. The acciden- 
tal recurrence of the c rime of the first stanza as the 
a rime of the second is a metrical blemish which 
may be taken as an argument against its Chaucerian 
authorship. 

XXIV. WOMANLY NOBLESSE 
This poem, which is found in a single manuscript, 
was first printed by Professor Skeat in The Athencevm, 
for June 9, 1894. If not deserving of the high praise 
bestowed upon it by Professor Skeat in the first flush 
of discovery, it is yet a charming and graceful bit of 
conventional love poetry. The rime-scheme is highly 
elaborate, but three rimes appearing in the entire 
jiiece. Tliere are three stanzas of nine lines each, rim- 
ing aahaahhaa^ with repeated rimes, and an envoy of 
six lines riming ababaa, in which the same rimes again 
appear. The a rime is therefore repeated twenty-two 
times. It should be noticed, however, that Chaucer 
has prudently chosen very easy rimes. 



CHAPTER V 

BOETIIIUS AND THE ASTROLABE 

BOETHIUS DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIE 

During the whole extent of the Middle Ages there 
was no single work, save the Bible itself, which ex- 
The erted so wide and continuous an influence on 

Original. ^^le thought of Europe as the dialogue of 
Boethius on the Consolation of Philosoj:)hy. In 
England its influence may be traced from the very 
dawn of our literature ; for the moralizing interpola- 
tions in Beowulf are in several instances to be traced 
to this source, and the De Co7isoIatione was among 
the works which the great Alfred gave to his country- 
men, translated into their own speech. Chaucer, as has 
already been seen, was permeated through and through 
with the teachiugs of Boethius, and his coutemporaries 
felt this influence as strongly. What is true of Eng- 
land is true also of France and Italy and Germany. 
The direct influence of Boethius, moreover, was su])i)le- 
mented by an indirect influence, exerting itself through 
the channels of other books, notably of the Roman 
de la Hose. Through this channel, not improbably, 
Chaucer first met the doctrines of Boethius ; and It is 
not impossible that the idea of Chaucei-'s trauslation 
was first suggested by a couplet of the Momun : — 

'T would redound 
Greatly to that man's praise who should 
Translate that book with masterhood.' 

1 Ellis's translation, 11. 53.14-5346. 



BOETHIUS AND THE ASTROLABE 81 

Joan de Mean, at any rate, followed his own advice, 
and made a translation of the book into French. 

The work fully deserved the popularity it attained, 
l)(>th in virtue of its inherent excellence and charm, 
and in virtue of the fascinatingly romantic life of its 
author. Additional authority was given to it by the 
tradition, now strongly questioned but never satisfacto- 
rily refuted, that its author was a Christian, and by 
the erroneous belief that he gave his life, a martyr for 
the true faith. Two or three centuries after his death, 
he was canonized as St. Severinus. 

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was born be- 
tween the years 475 and 483 a. d., probably later than 
480, and died in 524, his life falling in the exciting days 
of Odoacer and Theodoric. His family was one of high 
standing, which had. for six centuries held office in the 
public service ; his father, who died in the philosopher's 
boyhood, had been prefect of the city, praetorian pre- 
fect, and consul. Boethius married the daughter of his 
kinsman and guardian, Symmachus, a senator, and him- 
self sat in the Senate. In the year 510 he was elected 
sole consul through the favor of Theodoric. In 522 
the philosopher's two sons were made consuls together. 

Though participating in affairs of state, Boethius's 
highest efforts were given to his books. Plis educa- 
tion was of the best, and his wide attainments included 
a knowledge of Greek. ' He translated the works 
of Pythagoras on music, of Ptolemy on astromomy, of 
Nichomachus on arithmetic, of Euclid on geometry, of 
Archimedes on mechanics. Finally, he sought to bring 
the whole of Greek speculative science within the range 
of Roman readers ; and though he did not live to see 
tlie attainment of his ambition, he managed to give to 
the world in something less than twenty years, of which 
several were absorbed in the discharge of public duties, 



82 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

more than thirty books of commentary on, and trans- 
lation of, Aristotle.' ^ 

From this life of distinguished service, Boethius was 
snatched by a sudden tragic catastrophe. The Senate 
was suspected by Theodoric of a treasonable intent 
to restore the ancient liberties of Rome ; and Boethius 
was chosen as the one to bear the full brunt of the royal 
displeasure. Out of the mouths of notorious false wit- 
nesses, as Boethius insists, he was convicted of treason, 
was imprisoned at Pa via, and, after a long imprisonment, 
was put to death. It was during this period of impris- 
onment that he wrote the Conwlation of Philosophy. 

This, the latest and greatest of Boethius's writings, 
is a dialogue between the author and the goodly lady 
Philosophy, in alternating sections of prose and verse, 
wherein are discussed those great problems of human 
life which were brought vividly to the author's con- 
sciousness by his sudden and overwhelming misfortune, 
coming as it did close on the heels of his highest pros- 
perity. In briefest outline, the argument runs as 
follows: As Boethius bewails in prison the wretched- 
ness that has come upon him, suddenly appears to him 
the majestic figure of Philosophy. ' When all the 
universe is ordered by God,' the prisoner asks, ' why 
should man alone wander at will ? ' Philosophy, in her 
reply, asserts the absolute omnipotence of God (Book I). 
It is not right to blame Fortune for our woes, for none 
of the gifts of Fortune are really valuable. Fortune 
really benefits man only when she frowns upon him, 
thus teaching him what is the true good (Book II). 
What, then, is this true good ? It must include within 
itself all the partial goods for which various men strive ; 

1 H. F. Stewart, Boethius, an Essay, Edinburg-h and London, 1891, 
p. 26. This volume of 279 pag-es may be most enthusiastically recom- 
mended to any one who wishes to know more of Boethius and of his 
philosophy. 



BOETHIUS AND THE ASTROLABE 83 

and this absolute ami perfect good, the sum of all par- 
tial goods, is God himself. Since all men instinctively 
seek happiness, and since happiness consists only in the 
true good, all men naturally seek God (Book III). 
But if God is the supieme good and is omnipotent, why 
do the wicked flourish ? To this world-old question Phi- 
losophy answers in the si)irit of Plato, that the wicked 
are not really powerful, that properly they do not even 
exist at all. They are no part of God, and God alone 
really exists. God, in his omnipotence, rules the world 
by his providence, Fate being merely his minister, the 
actual working out of his providence. Chance does not 
exist at all (Book IV). But if God's providence rules 
all things, what room is left for the free will of man? 
To God, who is the only eternal, superior to the acci- 
dent of time, all things, past, present, and future, lie 
open in an ' everlasting now ; ' and all these things, 
being patent to his foreknowledge, have been ordered 
by him into a divine harmony. But to man, living 
under the condition of time, seeing only the past and 
present, blind to the future, there is at the moment a 
real freedom of choice. God foresees, but does not pre- 
destine ; j'et, since his foreknowledge is infallible, he 
overrules, not the choice, but the consequences of the 
choice. Thus the freedom of man's will is not inconsis- 
tent with God's overruling government (Book V). 

The philosophy of the Consolation^ though not 
untouched by Christian influence, is essentially pagan, 
an eclectic blending of Plato (and the Neo-Platonists) 
with Aristotle and the Stoics. Boethius is indeed the 
' last of the Romans.' Noble and exalted as is the 
spirit which informs the dialogue, the consolation sought 
and received is not the consolation of the Christian ; it 
is not a matter of faith, but of reason. It is curious \ 
that the subtle theolojrical intellect of the Middle Ajres : 



84 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

should have accepted it with whole-hearted approval.^ 
To Chaucer the Consolation of Philosophy became the 
domhiant influence in all his more speculative thought. 
Under its guidance he philosophized the story of Troilus 
and that of Palamon and Arcite; it is the thought of 
Boethius which he revitalizes in such balades as Truth 
and Fortune and The Former Age.^ 

There is no evidence which determines precisely the 
date of Chaucer's translation. It is included in the hst 
The Trans- of the poet's works given in the Prologue to 
lation. the Legend of Good Women, and must there- 
fore be earlier than 1386. Because of the very great 
Boethian influence on Troilus, and because of the fact 
that Chaucer mentions Troilus and his ' Boece ' together 
in the lines addressed to Adam, his scrivener, it has been 
thought that the two works were executed at about the 
same time, i.e. shortly after 1380. 

Chaucer used for his translation not only the Latin 
original, but also a French version, probably the work 
of Jean de Meun, which is preserved in two manuscripts 
of the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. As only a few 
excerpts from this translation have been printed, the 
precise extent of Chaucer's dependence on it has not 
been determined; but his debt seems to have been con- 
siderable.^ Some of Chaucer's many glosses are taken 

' The Latin text of the Consolalio, together with a seventeenth- 
century translation by 'I. T.' has been published in the Loeb Classical 
Library (1918), under the editorship of H. F. Stewart and E. K. 
Rand. 

^ For a most illuminating account of Chaucer's use of the Consola- 
tion, and for a discussion of his translation of the work, see B. L. 
Jefferson, Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius, 
Princeton University Press, 1917. 

5 See M. H. Liddell's article in Academy, 1895, II. 227, and his 
notes in the Globe Chaucer. See also the discussion by B. L. Jeffer- 
son, op. cit. pp. 1-9. Dr. Jefferson's conclusions were independently 
corroborated by J. L. Lowes in Romanic Review, 8.383-400 (1917). 



BOETHIUS AND THE ASTROLABE 85 

over from the French version; others are apparently 
from the commentary of Nicholas Trivet.^ 

Chaucer's translation is not free from blunders. For 
some of these the corruptions of his Latin text may be 
responsible; in the case of others he was certainly misled 
by the French version. But on the whole he has given 
a faithful and able rendering. The prose style of the 
translation, cumbersome and at times confused, and for 
our modern taste much too rhetorical, is in striking con- 
trast with the directness and simplicity, the clearness 
and grace, of Chaucer's verse. Mr. Stewart says of it: ^ 
'It is certainly not in prose that Chaucer's genius 
shows to best advantage. The restrictions of metre were 
indeed to him as silken fetters, while the freedom of 
prose only served to embarrass him.' Perhaps it would 
be better to say that for Chaucer and for his contem- 
poraries prOse bffered not untrammeled freedom, but 
the intricacies of a literary medium not yet mastered. 
For the prose of Chaucer's translation, if not always 
felicitous, is anything but artless. It employs intricate 
alliteration, balance and antithesis, varied cadence of 
clause, and other 'colours of rethoryk.' At his best, 
Chaucer attains to a dignity and eloquence that suggest 
the perfection, three centuries later, of this same tradi- 
tion of rhetorical prose in the hands of John Milton. 

A TREATISE ON THE ASTROLABE 

An astrolabe is 'an obsolete astronomical instru- 
ment of different forms, used for taking the altitude of 
the sun or stars, and for the solution of other problems 
in astronomy.' Chaucer's Treatise is an attempt to 
expound 'under ful Hghte rewles and naked wordes in 

' See the article by Miss K. O. Petersen, 'Chaucer and Trivet' 
Puhlica( ions of the Modern Language Association, 18. 173-193 (1903). 
"^ Boelhius, an Essay, p. 227. 



86 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

English,' the uses of the instrument and the elements 
of astronomy and astrology, for the benefit of ' litel 
Lewis my sone,' who had attained the ' tendre age of 
ten yeer.' As outlined in the Prologue, the work was to 
have consisted of five parts; but of these only the first 
and part of the second were completed. As the ' yeer of 
cure lord 1391, the 12 day of March ' is twice used ^ as 
an example in the ' conclusions ' of Part II, it is reason- 
able to assume that the year 1391 is the date of com- 
position. Chaucer makes no claim to originality in his 
work : ' I ne usurpe nat to have founde this werk of my 
labour or of myn engyn. I nam but a lewd compilatour 
of the labour of olde Astrologiens, and have hit trans- 
lated in myn English only for thy doctrine ; and with 
this swerd shal I sleen envye.' Professor Skeat has 
shown that the ' old astrologien ' from whom Chaucer 
has drawn the great bulk of his material is a Latin 
translation of a treatise by Messahala, an Arabian 
astronomer who flourished towards the end of the eighth 
century, entitled Compositio ct Operatio Astrolabie. As 
the tables were to be calculated ' aftur the latitude of 
Oxenford,' it has been assumed that little Lewis was 
a student in the Oxford schools; beyond this we know 
nothing whatever about him, and it is not unlikely 
that he may have died before reaching manhood. Since 
the work has no literary value save that of clear ex])o- 
sition, and since the modern reader is little likely to 
attempt its perusal, it is not necessary to discuss it 
further, except to call attention to the charming char- 
acter of the introductory sentences addressed by the 
author to his little son.^ 

1 2. 1. 6 and 2. 3. 18. 

2 The treatise has been edited by Mr. A. E. Brae, London, 1870, and 
afjatii in 1872 by Professor Skeat for tlie Chancer Society. Skeat's 
observations are repeated, in condensed form, in the Oxford Chaucer, 
3. Ivii-lxxx. 



CHAPTER VI 
TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 

Of all the poems of Chaucer, not excepting the Can,' 
terbury Tales, none is more characteristic of his genius 
than is Troilus and Criseyde. In some ways it is his 
supreme masterpiece; for it is the only work of large di- 
mensions, requiring a sustained effort of the poetical 
imagination, which he brought to completion. In mas- 
tery of constructive art, in perfect finish of execu- 
tion, in portrayal of character and easy flow of action, 
above all in its dramatic objectiveness and vivid 
actuality, it will bear comparison with any narrative 
poem in the language. 

Hitherto Chaucer had written, gracefully and wittily, 
in the school of French allegory and dream-vision. 
With Troilus he becomes the poet of living humanity. 
Though ostensibly a tale of Troy long ago, it makes but 
the scantest attempt to suggest the world of classical 
antiquity. Onlj^ the names are ancient; the characters, 
the manners, are modern and contemporary. Troy is 
but medifeval London, besieged as it might have been 
by the French. The parliament which King Priam con- 
venes is an English parliament. Troilus might as well 
be son to Edward III. Its spirit and temper is that of 
the modern novel rather than of the mediaeval romance. 
Were it written in prose, it would be called the first 
English novel. 

To the taste of the modern reader, particularly at a 
first reading, it may seem in places tediously prolix; for 
considering its length there is comparatively little ac- 



88 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

tion. Its interest lies not in rapid action, but in a keen, 
minute, almost Richardsonian portrayal of character 
and situation. Its appeal grows with a second reading 
or a third. One ceases to be impatient at the slowness of 
progress, and looks eagerly in every stanza for su})tle 
revelations of character and motive, for flashes of that 
ironical humor with which Chaucer has enlivened his 
essentially tragic theme, for lines of haunting poetic 
beauty. Perhaps the poem would be more effective still 
if it were somewhat condensed; but it is none the less 
true that from beginning to end there is not a stanza 
which is really irrelevant. 

That Troilus and Criseyde was written and already 
known to English readers before 1386 we know from the 
Date of references to it in the Prologue to the Legend 
Composi- oj Good Women. There is, further, a pre- 
tion. sumption amounting to virtual certainty 

that Chaucer was not acquainted with Boccaccio's 
Filostrato, his primary source for Troilus, earlier than 
his first Italian journey of 1373. Within this period of a 
dozen years the poem cannot be dated with absolute 
certainty; but a variety of considerations points strongly 
to a date not earlier than 138'2. For a date earlior than 
that the onl^^ important evidence is found in a passage 
of Gower's long French poem, the Miroir de VOmme, 
where mention is made of 'la geste de Troylus et de la 
belle Creseide.' If Gower is alluding to Chaucer's poem, 
we must date Troilus before 1377; but it seems probal>le 
that Gower is thinking of some earlier version of the 
famous story, despite the fact that the sole surviving 
manuscript of the Miroir gives the name of the lady as 
'Creseide' instead of 'Briseide,' the name under which 
she appears in Benoit and Guido. The most definite 
evidence for a later date is found in the plausible inter- 
pretation which sees a veiled compliment to the young 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 89 

(^iieen Anne in a passage near the beginning of Troilus 
wliich describes Criseyde's beauty: — 

Right as our firste lettre is now an A, 
In beautee first so stood she, makelees. 

Professor J. L. Lowes ^ was the first to suggest that 
this curious alphabetic simile, otherwise rather inept, 
refers to the use of Queen Anne's initial 'A' intertwined 
with the initial ' R ' of her royal husband as a decorative 
device on courtly robes and tapestries. If this interpre- 
tation is correct — and it is supported by documentary 
evidence that the queen's initial was actually so used — 
the passage in question cannot have been written earlier 
than January 1-i, 138'3, the date of Richard's marriage. 
A date between 1382 and 1384 is so thoroughly in accord 
with all the probabilities that it is accepted with a good 
deal of confidence. 2 

If written between 1382 and 1384, Troilus is a work of 
the poet's full maturity of mind and art; and its philo- 
sophic seriousness and superb mastery of exe- ^ . . 

• 1 • • Vni • Revision. 

cution corroborate the supposition. Ihere is 

abundant testimony that Chaucer wrought out his mas- 
terpiece with painstaking care, and jealously sought 
to maintain its artistic integrity. Near its close he prays 
that the poem may escape the corruption of careless 
copyists : — 

And for ther is so greet diversitee 
In English and in wryting of our tonge. 
So preye I god that noon miswryte thee, 
Ne thee misnietre for dcfaute of tonge; 

and in the lines addressed to Adam his own scrivener, 

* 'The Date of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde,' Publications of the 
Modern Langnarje Association, 23. 285-306 (1908). 

- See Professor Kitlredgc's Chaucer Society volume, The Date of 
Chancer's Troilus, 1908. For the argument in favor of an early date, 
Bcc Professor Tatlock's Development and Chronology, pp. 15-34. 



90 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

he represents himself as 'rubbing and scraping' the 
manuscripts of Troilus written by the careless scribe to 
correct their errors and bring them into textual conform- 
ity with his own 'making.' Nor was he content merely 
to correct scribal errors. The manuscripts of the poem 
which have survived to us show that even after its pub- 
lication Chaucer continued to work over it, rewriting 
lines, substituting a more felicitous word, changing here 
and there the order of the stanzas. INIost significant of 
these revisions is the addition of three new passages de- 
signed to heighten the philosophical tone of the poem. 
These are Troilus's hj^mn to love as the perpetual bond 
of- all things in heaven and earth (3. 1744-1771), which 
is closely paraphrased from one of the metres of Boe- 
thius; the long soliloquy of Troilus on the conflict 
between divine foreknowledge and human freedom 
(4. 953-1085), which is also adapted from Boethius; and 
the three stanzas (5. 1807-1827) near the close of the 
poem, borrowed from Boccaccio's Teseide, which de- 
scribe the flight to heaven of the soul of Troilus. 

There is no evidence to determine the date of these 
revisions, which were certainly not all made at one time. 
The added passages seem to have been written at an 
early period; that on free will is referred to by Thomas 
Usk in his Testament of Love wTitten about 1387. The 
manuscripts on which Skeat's text of the poem is based 
contain the greater part, but not all, of Chaucer's re- 
visions.^ 

Of the many sources from which the Middle Age sat- 
The Troy isfied its thirst for stories, three stand out pre- 
Story. eminent. There is first the ' matter of France ' 
Tv^ith its heroic tales of Charlemagne and Roland; 

1 For a full account of the problem of revision, see the present 
writer's Chaucer Society volume, The Textual Tradition of Chaucer's 
Troilus, 191G. 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 91 

there is again the 'matter of Brittany' with its ro- 
mances of the Table Round; and lastly, the source 
with which we arc immediately concerned, 'the mat- 
ter of Rome the Great.' By this last phrase we are to 
understand, of course, not merely Rome, but the 
whole field of classical anticjuity, — the wars of Alexan- 
der, the tale of Thebes, and above all, the ' tale of Troy 
divine.' 

A modern author who should wish to write of Troy 
would turn first of all to Homer; but in the Middle Ages 
Homer was little more than a name. There must always 
have been a few scholars here and there who had some 
knowledge of Greek, picked up perhaps on journeys to 
the Levant; but for the vast majority of those who read 
at all. Homer was accessible only in the E'pitome Iliados 
IIomericcB of Pindarus Thebanus (first century), where 
the events of the Iliad are condensed into 1100 lines of 
Latin hexameter. But even if Homer had been more 
easily accessible, it is doubtful whether he would have 
satisfied the mediaeval historian. To begin with, he 
lived long after the events he undertakes to describe; 
and then, too, his work bears the marks of evident false- 
hood, for who can believe that the gods came down to 
earth and warred ^vnth men? Fortunately there was a 
better authority than that of Homer, the authority of an 
eyewitness, who himself took part in the expedition 
against Troy. This important document is the Ephem- 
eris Belli Trojani of Dictys the Cretan. 

Dictys Cretensis was, so the preface of the Ephemeris 
tells us, a dweller in Cnossus, who with Idomeneus and 
Merion took arms against Troy. Realizing with rare 
insight that the events which v.ere passing by unheeded 
of most would be of deep interest to the generations to 
follow. Dicta's kept a journal written in Phoenician char- 
acters. On the author's death, the six books of his chron- 



92 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

icle were buried with him in a tin case, where they rested 
undisturbed until the thirteenth year of the reign of 
Nero, when they were fortunately exposed by an earth- 
quake. A Greek, named Eupraxis, carried the manu- 
script to Rome, where, at the command of Nero, it was 
transliterated into Greek characters, and from the Greek 
version a Latin translation was made by one Septimius 
Romanus. It is hardly necessary to suggest that this 
story must not be taken too seriously. Whether the 
work is really a translation from the Greek, or whether 
the forgery was first launched in its present form, we 
cannot say with certainty; but scholars are now inclined 
to believe that the former is the case. The translation, 
if translation it be, occupies 113 pages of Teubner text, 
while the period covered begins with the birth of Paris, 
and ends with the death of Ulysses. The prose style of 
the author is fairly good, being to a great extent an 
imitation of that of Sallust. The date of composition is 
probably the fourth century a. d. The following passage 
taken from chapter ix, describing the death of Troilus, 
will give a fair idea of what the book is like : — 

At post paucos dies Graeci instructi arm is processere in 
carapum lacessentes, si auderent, ad bcllandum Trojanos. 
Quis dux Alexander cum reliquis fratribus militem ordinal 
atque adversum pergit. Scd priiisquam ferire inter se aeies, 
aut jaci tela coepere, barbari desolatis ordinibus fugam faciunt: 
cfesique eorum plurimi, aut in flunien praeceps dati, cum hinc 
atque inde ingrucret hostis atque undique adempta fuga esset. 
Capti etiam Lycaon et Troilus Priamidoe, quos in medium 
perductos Achilles jugulari jubet indignatus nondum sibi a 
Priamo super his, quse secum tractaverat, mandatum. 

Dictys was greatly preferred to Homer, because he 
v/as more trustworthy, being, as we have seen, an eye- 
v.'itness, and excluding all traces of the supernatural; 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 93 

hut there was one particular in which he was not per- 
fectly satisfactory: he was a Greek, and, as such, preju- 
diced against the Trojans, who were our ancestors. It is 
not necessary, however, to trust to the narrative of a 
single prejudiced historian; by good fortune there was 
also an historian within the walls of Troy. The De Ex- 
cidio TrojoB Ilistoria of Dares the Phrygian gives us an 
authentic account of the war from the standpoint of the 
defeated Trojans. 

Homer mentions {Iliad, 5. 9) one Dares, a rich man 
and blameless, a priest of Hephosstus. To him antiquity 
ascribed an Iliad older than Homer's. Of this lost work, 
probably the work of a sophist, the Latin version pur- 
ports to be a translation made by Cornelius Nepos. A 
recently discovered papyrus proves that a Greek original 
really existed, of which the Latin version is a condensa- 
tion; but the condensation was certainly not made by 
Nepos. Professor Constans, the editor of Benoit, char- 
acterizes the Ilistoria as ' un assemblage disproportionne 
de maigres details ecrit en un latin barbare et horrihle- 
ment monotone.' It cannot have been composed earlier 
than the sixth century a. d. That Constans has not been 
too hard on Dares may be shown by the following selec- 
tion (chapter xxix) : — 

Postera die Trojani alacres in aciem prodcunt. Agamem- 
non cxercitum contra educit. Proelio commisso utcrque exer- 
citus inter se piignat. Postquam major pars diei transiit, 
prodit in prime Troilus, cajdit devastat, Argivos in caslra 
fngat. Postera die exercitum Trojani educunt: contra Aga- 
memnon. Fit maxima ca^des, uterque exercitus inter se pug- 
nat acriter. Multos duces Argivorum Troilus interficit. 
Pugnatur continuis diebus VII. Agamemnon indutias petit 
in duo menses. 

Fifty-two pages of Teubner text are filled with such 



94 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

wretched stuflf as this ! But despite its inferiority. Dares 
seems to have been more popular with the Middle Ages 
than Dictys. He was a Trojan, and therefore a country- 
man; he was at any rate mercifully brief; perhaps, as 
Ten Brink suggests, the very fact that the work is but 
an epitome made it all the more available for the expan- 
sion and adornment which the Troy story was to receive 
at the hands of Benoit de Sainte-More.^ 

In the latter half of the twelfth century, according to 
Constans between 1155 and 1160, appeared a work 
which lies at the foundation of the whole later develop- 
ment of the legend of Troy; this is the Roman de Troie 
of Benoit de Sainte-More. Of Benoit, as of so many 
authors of the Middle Ages, we know nothing with cer- 
tainty; but his book is a very substantial, and to the 
student a rather appalling, fact of 30,316 hues of octo- 
syllabic couplets. Using as his basis the brief epitome of 
Dares, ^ and supplementing the matter there found from 
Dictys and Ovid, and perhaps other authors still, Benoit 
has given us a detailed history, which begins with the 
Argonautic expedition, describes the rape of Helen, the 
gathering of the Greek hosts, and, after telling the events 
of the siege and fall of Troy, devotes 5000 lines to the 
return of the Greek warriors to their homes, ending v\ath 
the death of Ulysses. One would not like to be compelled 
to read the Roman through from cover to cover; but 
taken in moderate doses, Benoit has a good deal of 
poetic charm. Compared with Dictys and Dares, Benoit 
is great literature. 

A little more than a century after the appearance of 
the Roman de Troie, in 1287, an Itahan named Guido 

* There is some reason to believe that a much longer Latin version 
of Dares may have been extant in the Middle Ages, of which the exist- 
ing Historia is a condensation. 

* Or perhaps a longer version of Dares, now lost. 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 95 

clelle Colonne produced in turgid Latin prose a para- 
phrase of Benoit's French poem. Guido, who was care- 
ful to say nothing about his indebtedness to Benoit, not 
only succeeded in passing off his Hidoria Trojana as an 
original composition; but was until after the middle of 
the nineteenth century actually believed to be the origi- 
nal from whom Benoit drew the material of his Roman. 
Guido added little to the substance of the tradition; but 
because his work was in the universal language of Eu- 
rope, it attained a wide circulation, was translated into 
many languages, and became the basis for several JNIid- 
dle Enghsli 'Troy Books,' of which Lydgate's is, per- 
haps, the most important. 

Before considering the Filosirato of Boccaccio, the 
immediate source of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseijde, it 
will be necessary to look back once more over the ground 
already traversed, and notice the degree of prominence 
given by earlier authors to the figures of Chaucer's pair 
of lovers. Homer merely mentions in a single passage 
(Iliad, 24. 257) the chariot-fighter Troilus as one of the 
sons of Priam whom Ares has destroyed. Virgil devotes 
a few lines to an account of his death {/Eneid, 1. 474- 
478). Criseyde, or Briseida as Benoit calls her, probably 
represents two Homeric personages: Briseis, the slave 
of Achilles, vrhose name appears in the accusative Bri- 
seida in Iliad, 1. 184, and Chrj^seis, daughter of the seer 
Chryses, who is taken from Agamemnon at the com- 
mand of Apollo. The accusative of her name, Chry- 
seida, occurs in Iliad, 1. 182. As the professor of leger- 
demain will take two thin rabbits, and, rubbing them 
together in his hands, present us with one particularly 
fat rabbit, so these two unimportant characters have 
combined to form the heroine of the mediaeval tale of 
Tro}'. In Dictys and Dares, Troilus has become a more 
important figure among the sons of Priam, and Briseida 



96 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

is accorded some prominence; but there is no hint of any 
relationship between them. 

It is to Benoit de Sainte-More, so far as we can de- 
termine, that must be given the credit of inventing the 
story of the faithful love of Troilus and the faithlessness 
of Criseyde. One must not suppose, however, that the 
story furnishes the central theme of his voluminous 
work. It is merely an episode, which, during about a 
third of his work, serves to relieve the annals of blood- 
shed. We first meet the episode at line 13065, when a 
parliament is held to decide upon the return of Briseida 
to the Grecian camp; the death of Troilus occurs a 
thousand lines before the end of the poem.^ In the main 
the events recorded agree with those described in the 
latter half of the poems of Boccaccio and Chaucer, 
Though a King Pandarus is mentioned by Benoit 
as one of the councilors in the Trojan parliament, 
he bears no part in the determinaition of the fortunes 
of Troilus and his love. 

It was the genius of Boccaccio w^iich first recognized 
in the Troilus and Briseida episode of Benoit the mate- 
rial for a single and unified love story. 'Boccaccio seems 
to have known both Guido and Benoit; Italian transla- 
tions of both were then in existence; and on their basis 
he built up one of his most charming works, the most 
perfect of his epic poems. . . . The story lay before him 
finished, as part of a richly organized wdiole, and his 
only creative work was that specially suited to the poet, 

> Benoit's poem is availaljle in the admirable edition of Leopold 
Constans, published in six volumes by the Societe des Ancicns Textes 
Francais, Paris, 1904-1912. The last volume of this edition contains 
a very useful discussion not only of Benoit, but of the development of 
the Troy story as a whole. A summary of those parts of the poem 
which deal with Troilus and Briseida may be found in Professor 
Kittredge's Chaucer Society volume, The Date of Chaucer's Troilus, 
pp. C2-G5. / 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 97 

viz., the exercise of selection, of spiritual penetration, of 
deepening the characterization, and of glorifying all by 
a poetic presentation. . , . This tender, sentimental tale 
(for the poet passes quickly over the conclusion, and all 
the warlike scenes) is presented by Boccaccio with great 
psychological discernment, and with the most personal 
participation, though here and there with a slight tinge 
of irony. A truly creative spirit is revealed by the way 
in which the details are worked out, and by the thousand 
little touches that make us interested in his characters. 
But all these touches converge to one point, all have 
the same tendency.' ^ 

Benoit's episode, as we have seen, begins with the 
departure of the heroine for the Greek camp; and in 
consequence the main interest of the tale centers about 
her intrigue with Diomede, the Troilus story serving as 
little more than an introduction. All the earlier scenes 
of the Filostrato are Boccaccio's invention. To serve as 
motive force for this earlier part of the story, the poet 
has invented the character of Pandarus. The Panda- 
rus of Boccaccio, to be sure, is a character in many 
ways different from the Pandarus whom we know from 
Chaucer; he is a young and sprightly Florentine gen- 
tleman, an intimate companion of Troilus, and a cousin 
to Criseida. 

In the preceding section of this chapter we have 
traced the development of the Troy myth as a whole, 
and have seen how the genius of Boccaccio, Boccaccio, 
seizing on a single episode of Benoit's Ro- and^hake- 
vian, has made a new and independent ro- speare. 
mance, not of battles long ago, but of lovers and their 
love. This new creation has become one of the great 
world-stories, both in virtue of its intrinsic interest and 
l^ecause of its use by three great world-poets: Boccaccio, 
' Ten Brink, Hiitory of English Literature (Eng. trans.), 2. 88-90, 



98 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Chaucer, and Shakespeare. It is in the highest degree 
interesting to see how these three poets have altered or 
modified the theme, each in accordance with his own 
character and underlying literary purpose. Boccaccio is 
a thoroughgoing sentimentalist, and he has told the 
story, accordingly, M'ith full sympathy. Troilo is a por- 
trait of the poet himself, generous, high-spirited, enthu- 
siastic, sentimental. He has been in love before; but on 
beholding Criseida in the temple, as Boccaccio first be- 
held Fiammetta, he loves her with all his soul. Pandaro 
is a gay, light-hearted, loose-principled gallant, such as 
Boccaccio may have known at the Neapolitan court. 
Criseida is a fickle beauty, and little more. Troilo is the 
central figure of the poem, and with his love longings in 
the earher part of the tale, and still more with his later 
sorrow, the reader is asked to sympathize in fullest 
measure.^ 

When Chaucer approached the story, he was no longer 
young. Though he professes himself the servant of the 
servants of love, he dares not hope success in love him- 
self, 'for myn unlyklinesse.' If he identifies himself with 
any of the persons of his story, it is with the ironist Ban- 
dar, rather than with the sentimental Troilus. He tells 
the story with more detachment than does Boccaccio. 
Into its fundamental tragedy he breathes a spirit of 
ironical humor, which is all but totally foreign to the 
Italian poem. Even as he recounts the idealism of Tro- 
ilus and presents the inexhaustible charm of Criseyde, 
' he is conscious of the bitter mockery of both which is to 
be provided by Criseyde's ultimate treachery. That 
such angelic beauty and womanly charm should reside 
in a nature so essentially shallow and unstable, that the 

1 An English translation of the pertinent parts of the Filostralo by 
W. M. Rossetti has been pubUshed by the Chaucer Society: Chaucer's 
Troilus and Criseyde (Jrom the Harl. MS. S943) compared with 
Boccaccio's Filostrato, translated by W. M. Rossetti, London, 1873. " 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 99 

youthful ardor and utter loyalty of Troilus should be 
expended on a woman capable of Criseyde's baseness, 
that is part of the mystery and mockery of human life. 
And so, if Chaucer's poem has much more humor than 
Boccaccio's, it has also a much higher seriousness, a 
seriousness which becomes at the end a philosophic in- 
terpretation of the action, and through it of the ultimate 
values of life. Criseyde's falsehood becomes a type of 
the fallacy of all earthly happiness. But if life is certain 
to deceive, it is none the less very interesting, very amus- 
ing; and Chaucer dwells with the subtle analysis of great 
comedy on the complications of his tragic plot, the inter- 
play of motive, above all on the psychological problems 
of Criseyde's character. The result is a poem which is 
neither tragedj'' nor comedy, but a masterpiece of irony. 

Though in a very different spirit, Chaucer has in gen- 
eral followed the outline of Boccaccio's poem. At times, 
for many stan?:as together, he is content to follow its 
very words. But he has very appreciably expanded his 
original; Filostrato contains 5512 lines, Troilus has 8239. 
The greater part of Chaucer's additions are found in the 
second and third books. The whole episode of the meet- 
ing of the lovers at the house of Deiphebus has no coun- 
terpart in Filosirato; wholly original also is the elaborate 
stratagem by vvhich Pandarus brings the lovers to- 
gether at his own house. ^ 

If Chaucer has transformed the spirit of the story 
from pathetic sentimentality to half-ironical humor, 

' For the relation of Troilus to its sources see Professor Karl 
Young's Chaucer Society volume, Origin and Development of the 
Story of Troilus and Criseyde, 1908, and H. M. Cummings, The In- 
debtedness of Chaucer's Works to the Italian Works of Boccaccio, 
Princeton dissertation, 1916. Professor Young has argued that the 
episode of the first night of his lovers was suggested to Chaucer by an 
episode in the Filocolo, a prose romance of Boccaccio. Dr. Cumminga 
has, I think with justice, thrown grave doubt on the probability of 
8uch indebtedness. 



100 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Shakespeare, in his Troilus and Cressida, has approached 
it in a spirit of bitter cynicism and blackest pessimism.^ 
The love story, which is after all subordinate to the 
intrigues of the Grecian camp, has neither the romance 
of Boccaccio nor the humor of Chaucer; it is merely dis- 
gusting. Troilus remains much what he is in Chaucer; 
but Cressida has flung away every pretense of virtue, 
and is merely a confessed wanton. Pandarus has lost all 
his geniality and humor, and is merely repulsive. To 
crown all, the final worthlessness of Cressida, and the 
breaking heart of Troilus, are interpreted to us by the 
scrofulous mind of Thersites, whose whole function in 
the play is to defile with the foulness of his own imagina- 
tion all that humanity holds high and sacred.^ 

Chaucer's main source for Troilus is the Filostrafo of 
Boccaccio; it is, indeed, no exaggeration to say that the 
, English poem is a free reworking of the Ital- 
ian. Chaucer has, to be sure, with something 
of the scholar's instinct, gone back of his immediate 
original, and consulted for a point here and there the 
works of Benoit and of Guido. Though there is no proof 
that he used the prose Dares, he did use for the portraits 
of the dramatis persona; which he draws in the fifth book 
the twelfth-century paraphrase of Dares in Latin hex- 
ameters by the Englishman, Joseph of Exeter.^ With 
the artist's instinct, he has reshaped his characters, and 

1 For the reasons which may have actuated Shakespeare's treat- 
ment of the story, see the essay by W. W. Lawrence in the Cohmibia 
University Press volume of Shaksperian Studies (New York, 1916), 
pp. 187-211. 

2 Those who wish to pursue the theme still further in English liter- 
ature may read Dryden's version of Troilus and Cressida, in which the 
character of the heroine is vitally altered by a new interpretation put 
upon her relations with Diomcd. 

' See the article by R. K. Root, 'Chaucer's Dares,' Modern Phi- 
lolo(iy, 15. 1-22 (1917). Chaucer seems to have known Dictys only by 
name. 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 101 

added two important episodes to the plot; but his debt 
to Boccaccio remains preponderant. 

Nowhere, however, does he so much as mention Boc- 
caccio's name. Instead, he professes to follow with strict 
fidelity ' myn autour called Lollius.' Twice, once near the 
beginning of the poem and again near its end, he men- 
tions 'Lollius' by name; and he appeals to him by im- 
plication as 'myn autour' in half a dozen other passages. 
The identification of this mysterious 'Lollius' is a prob- 
lem which has hitherto bafUed the critics; for, though 
one can find actual authors who bear the name of Lol- 
lius, or something resembling it, none of them has writ- 
ten the tale of Troy. Our most probable guess is that 
the notion that some one named Lollius had written of 
the Trojan war is to be traced to a misreading of the 
opening lines of one of the epistles of Horace, the second 
epistle of Book I: — 

Troiani belli scriptorem, maxime Lolli, 
Dum tu declamas Romae, Preeneste relegi. 

It seems clear that Chaucer did not invent ' Lollius ' out 
of whole cloth, that he really believed that some 'Tro- 
iani belli scriptor maximus' named Lollius, a Latin poet 
of long ago, had actually existed; for he mentions him 
also in the House of Fame, along with Homer, Dares, 
Dictys, and Guido delle Colonne, as one who bears up 
the fame of Troy. Perhaps he thought that the Latin 
work of 'Lollius,' which he had never seen, was the im- 
mediate source of the Italian Filostroto, that in following 
Filosiraio he was but following Lollius at second hand. 
At any rate, Chaucer chose to cite as his chief authority 
the work of 'Lollius,' a Latin poet of long ago, instead 
of a contemporary work written in the vernacular of 
Italy. 1 He could thus lend to his story an air of greater 

' It, is not at all impossible that Chaucer did not know who was the 
author of Filostrato. 



102 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

credibility, as though it were in all essentials authentic 
history. Nor was there anything in the literary ethics of 
the Middle Ages which demanded of Chaucer an ac- 
knowledgment of his actual debt. Every good story was 
regarded as common property. A mediaeval author ad- 
duced authority whenever by so doing he could add 
credit to his own work, never in recognition of an obliga- 
tion.^ 

In the proem to Book II, Chaucer warns his readers 
that there is more than one w^ay to make love : — 

Eek for to winne love in sondry ages. 
In sondry londes, sondry been usages. 

If it was necessary for the poet to forestall the possible 
criticism of fourteenth-century lovers to whom the 
Courtly speech and doings of his hero might seem 
Love. 'wonder nyce and straunge,' it is much more 

necessary to forestall similar criticism from the modern 
reader. The art of love has, like every other art, its 
conventions; but these conventions change greatly in 
sundry ages and in sundry lands. The love of Troilus 
and Criseyde is told in accordance with the code of 
courtly love, the code which is assumed in the French 
romances of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in 
Chretien de Troyes and Marie de France, the code which 
is allegorically presented in the Roman de la Rose. 

One of the central features of this code is that ideal 
love is seldom if ever compatible wdth marriage. INIod- 
ern readers of Troilus are sure to ask wdiy Troilus did not 
marry Criseyde. If Troilus is a prince royal, Criseyde is 
at least a lady of excellent social standing, and appar- 
ently of wealth. There could have been no serious bar to 

' For the latest discussion of the Lollius problem and for a review 
of earlier discussions, see G. L. Kittrec'.ge, 'Chaucer's Lollius,' Har- 
vard Studies in Classical Philology, 28. 47-133 (1917). The interpreta- 
tion given above is in essentials that of Professor Kittredge. 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 103 

a marriage, had the lovers so wished. But the idea of 
marriage is never once suggested. In the code of courtly 
love marriage is an arrangement of convenience cjuite 
outside the region of romantic love. Marriage implies, 
theoretically at least, the subjection of wife to husband; 
and in the love of the romances the lady rules supreme, 
her lightest whim a law. A twelfth-century writer on the 
art of love, Andreas Capellanus, reports a decision of the 
Countess ]\Iarie of Champagne that love cannot exist 
between husband and wife, 'amorem non posse suas 
inter duos iugales extendere vires.' ^ 

But courtly love is in no sense platonic. Far removed 
as it is from grossness and mere sensuality by its elabo- 
rate idealization, it seeks final consummation in the 
complete surrender of the lady. When Crispyde- accepts 
Troilus as her lover, she grants by implication the be- 
stowal of her ultimate favors. Nor does such a bestowal 
incur from the courtly poet the slightest hint of blame. 
The relation established is an ideal relation, with all the 
sanctitj^ which modern feeling casts about an ideal mar- 
riage. Chaucer repeatedly tells us that the influence on 
Troilus of his love, both in the period of his despairing 
adoration and that of his final possession, was an enno- 
bling one. In the field of battle against the Greeks he was 
a very lion; and among his friends in Troy his manner 
became so goodly and gracious 'that ech him lovede 
tliat loked on his face.' When Criseyde takes her fare- 
well of Troilus just before she sets out for the Grecian 
camp, she tells him that it was not his rank and riches, 
nor yet his martial prowess, which first won her love, 
*but moral vertue grounded upon trouthe.' ^ 

' Andrea; Capellani de Amorc lihri trcs, ed. Trojel (1892) p. 153. 
For a useful summary of the code of courtly love and a detailed study 
of its exemplification in the works of Chaucer, see W. G. Dodd, 
Courtly Love in Cliancnr and Gower, Boston, 1913. 

* See Troilus, 1, 1075-10S2; 3. 1802-1806; 4. 1GG7-1G73. 



104 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

' We are to accept the love of Troilus and Criseyde, 
then, as something pure and ideal hke the love of Romeo 
and Juliet, even though it lack the sanction of wedlock. 
And yet this noble and ennobling union must be kept 
inviolably secret. Were it avowed and known, the lady's 
reputation would be irreparably soiled. Pandarus re- 
peatedly warns Troilus that he must not blab; and when, 
after the Trojan parliament has decreed Criseyde's re- 
turn to her father, Troilus urges that they flee together 
to some far land, Criseyde pleads her reputation against 
it: — 

And also thenketh on myn honestee. 
That floureth yet, how foule I sholde it shende. 
And with what filthe it spotted sholde be. 
If in this forme I sholde with yow wende. 

So at all costs the union must be kept secret, and the 
meetings of the lovers must be clandestine. This ir- 
reconcilable conflict of standards, that a love vrhich is 
regarded as not only right and proper but ideally noble 
should if known become the height of dishonor, marks 
the essential artificiality of the whole code of courtly 
love. But artificial or not. we must accept its postulates 
if we are to understand the fundamental problem of 
Troihis. We must not consider the clandestine and il- 
licit love of Troilus as in any sense a derogation of his 
noble character; nor must we regard Criseyde's accept- 
ance of his love, scrupulously concealed as it is from all 
eyes, as any reflection on her honor. Criseyde's sin is not 
that she becomes the mistress of Troilus, but that hav- 
ing pledged her love she becomes unfaithful. For in 
courtly love, as in the whole system of chivalric ethics, 
the greatest of the virtues is truth and loyalty, and the 
blackest crime is that of faithlessness. As Dante reserves 
the lowest pit of his Inferno for the treachery of Brutus 
and Cassius and Judas Iscariot, so the deepest condem- 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 105 

nation of the courtly lover is visited on the faithless 
Criseyde, the renegade of true love. 

It is in the light of these conventions of courtly love 
that one must analyze the character of Chaucer's hero- 
ine. In Book I we see Criseyde only at a dis- „ . 

, • ^ n Criseyde. 

tance; but even so we are captivated at nrst 

sight, as Troilus is, by her beauty and charm. We are 
touched, too, with pity for her in the trying situation in 
which she is placed, and with admiration for the fine 
dignity with which she meets it. Her father, Calchas, 
knowing by his magic art that Troy is doomed to de- 
struction, has basely gone over to the enemy, and left 
his daughter to bear alone and un})rotected the anger 
which the Trojan populace is ready to visit on all his kin. 
She is a widow, also, recently bereaved. And so, alone 
and in great peril, she throws herself on the protection of 
Hector, who chivalrously promises her full immunity. 
She is living, then, in strict retirement in her own stately 
house with three young nieces to bear her company, and 
so 'keeps her estate' that she wins the full respect and 
love of every one. But who could help loving a lady of 
such exquisite beauty.^ 

So aungellyk was hir natyf beautee. 
That lyk a thing inmortal semed she. 
As doth an hevcnish parfit creature. 
That doun were sent in scorning of nature. 

Not only is she beautiful, there is a queenly dignity and 
grandeur in her port. 

April comes and with it the great feast of Palladion, 
the Trojan Easter day, when every one goes to church 
in his best clothes; and Criseyde in her simple w^idow's 
black goes too. Ever conscious of her father's shame, 
she takes an inconspicuous station near the door; but 
having yielded so much to her sense of disgrace, her 



106 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

proud spirit never falters. She has a 'ful assured loking 
and manere,' with just a touch of defiance in it. It is 
while she stands thus in the temple that Troilus sees her 
from afar, and is struck to the heart by her beauty and 
dignity. 

This is all that we see of Criseyde in Book I; though 
her presence, to be sure, fills all the long scene of Troi- 
lus's feverish love-longing. 

Book II may be called the book of Criseyde. An over- 
whelming proportion of its lines is directly dedicated to 
the unfolding of her character, and to the subtle analysis 
of her heart as the figure of Troilus gradually establishes 
itself there. On a May morning Pandarus goes on his 
embassy to Criseyde's house. He finds her in a 'paved 
parlour' with two other ladies, listening to the 'geste of 
the Sege of Thebes,' quite undisturbed by the fact that 
its author. Statins, was not to be born till near the mid- 
dle of the first century a.d. He playfully asks if it is a 
book of love she is reading, and is laughingly answered 
by an allusion to his own unrequited love. No small part 
of Criseyde's charm is conveyed through these scenes 
with her uncle, scenes of playful badinage, in w^iich her 
wit is quite the equal of his. Uncle and niece meet on 
the most gi'acious terms of long established affection and 
understanding, with free give and take of kindly banter. 

In answer to Pandar's suggestion that she put away 
her book and rise up and dance, she reminds him that 
she is a widow : — 

It sete me \sel bet ay in a cave 

To bidde, and rede on holy seyntes lyves; 

Lat maydens gon to daimce, and yonge wyves. 

This protestation is hardly to be taken with full serious- 
ness; and yet it suggests, I think, something of the truth. 
Criseyde has come to regard herself, in the life of quiet 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 107 

seclusion which follows on her widowhood and her fa- 
tlior's shameful treachery, as forever cut off from the 
brighter things of Ufe. It is a state of mind by no means 
unfa\orable to the discovery that she has won the love 
of Troilus, when once she has had time to make the 
necessary adjustments. Pandarus pays no attention to 
her words, but immediately begins to play on her wo- 
man's curiosity by hinting at a great piece of news that 
he could tell her if he would. He plan's with his secret 
through a dozen stanzas, insinuating into his speech the 
praise of Troilus, the friendliest of princes, second only 
to Hector in prowess. Then at last, after much teasing, 
he tells her the news, giving her no chance to reply till he 
has spoken ten stanzas of appeal and argument. 

Was the news a complete surprise to Criseyde, or had 
she during the month which had elapsed since the feast of 
Palladion suspected the truth.'^ We cannot say. Chau- 
cer himself raises the question, but professes his uncer- 
tainty as to the answer. In any case she receives the 
news calmly : — 

Criseyde which that herde him in this vryse, 
Thoughte, ' I shal fele what he meneth, ywis.' 
' Now, eem,' quod she, ' what wolde ye devj'se. 
What is your reed I sholde doon of this?' ' 

But when Pandar has given his advice that she return 
love for love, this cool deliberation melts into a passion- 
ate burst of tears and reproaches, that he, her uncle and 
her best friend, should counsel her to love. These tears 
are the natural reaction which follows on the first clear 
recognition of the terrifying possibility that she, the 
widow and the recluse, may begin again to live passion- 
ately. Iler resentment is short-lived, and she listens 
trcml^ling to Pandar's threat that her hard heart will be 
the death not only of Troilus but of himself as well. Is 



108 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

there after all any evil in her uncle's advice that she 
smile on Troilus, when she has the solemn assurance 
that he means no 'harm or vilanye'? 

And if this man slee here himself, alias! 
In my presence, it wol be no solas. 
What men wolde of hit deme I can nat seye; 
It nedeth me ful sleyly for to pleye. 

Criseyde has recovered her self-control. In the lines 
just quoted, and even more in the long soliloquy in 
which she weighs the pro's and con's of love, one realizes 
how complete this self-control is. There is in these 
speeches a tone of cool calculation which to many readers 
may seem unpleasant, a trait of character which appears 
again in the fourth book when she builds her hope for a 
speedy return to Troy on the avarice of her aged father. 
In appraising these speeches, it must be remembered 
that Criseyde is not a young girl, with the impulsive 
idealism of her maidenhood. Just how old she is we do 
not know, — Chaucer himself professes that he does not 
know either — ; but one feels that she is, in experience 
at least, older than Troilus. She has been married and is 
now a widow. 'I am,' she says, 'myn owene woman, wcl 
at ese.' Though love of Troilus has already found lodg- 
ment in her heart, it does not sweep her off her feet. She 
does not so much fall in love as drift into love; but she 
drifts with her eyes open. 

Pandarus takes his leave, too shrewd in his knowledge 
of Criseyde's character to press her to a decision. But he 
has made his effect, and the effect is powerfully height- 
ened by the circumstances which follow. By great good 
fortune, Troilus himself is presented to her view, Troilus 
the mighty warrior returning from battle on his wounded 
charger. Here is a living argument. Criseyde considers 
his excellent prowess, his wit, his shape, his courte?y, 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 109 

and above all his love for her. Would it not be a pity to 
cause the death of such an one as he? And last of all her 
uiece, Antigone, sings her song in praise of love, every 
word of which imprints itself on Criseyde's heart. 'And 
ay gan love hir lasse for to agaste than it dide erst.' 

On the next day Pandarus returns to the attack with 
a letter from Troilus, which Criseyde at first refuses to 
receive, but at last consents to answer. Once more, this 
time by Fandar's appointment, the knightly Troilus 
rides by her window. Though she will write to her lover, 
she oii'crs him only a sister's regard. She will not agree 
to speak to him : — 

it were eek to sone 
To graunten him so greet a libertee. 
For playnly hir entente, as seyde she. 
Was for to love him iinwist, if she mighte. 
And guerdon him with nothing but with sighte. 

It is a prime article in the code of courtly love, as in 
our modern conventions of love-making, that the lady 
must not let herself be too easily won. Troilus and 
Pandar have every reason to be satisfied with the result 
of these two days of wooing; for the lady has at least 
acquiesced in the courtship, and her words 'eek to sone' 
and 'if she mighte' suggest the promise of more to come. 

Up to this point Chaucer's story follows essentially, 
though with greater elaboration of detail, that of his 
Italian model. But here Boccaccio's heroine consents, 
with merely formal protest, to receive her lover as soon 
as time and place shall serve, provided only that due 
secrecy be maintained; and the joy of the lovers is 
shortly consummated. For the character of Criseyde as 
Chaucer has conceived it, such a course of action would 
have been much too direct. It would have required a 
definite decision instead of a genial drifting with circum- 
stance. It is a striking fact that Criseyde, with all her 



110 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

native self-assurance, never takes a single step of her 
own volition. And so, that she may seem to herself to 
have been ensnared rather than to have capitulated, 
Pandarus gives full play to his love of cunning stratagem. 
It is a most ingenious stratagem, plausible in its devis- 
ing, and skillfully controlled by the master strategist 
down to the smallest detail, which brings Criseyde to 
the feigned sick-bed of the truly love-sick Troilus at the 
house of Deiphebus, where Troilus first has the chance 
to plead his own cause. This meeting proves to be the 
decisive moment of the story; for Criseyde, though 
unable to make a decision, accepts completely a decision 
which has been made for her by the logic of events, or 
by the scheming of her uncle. She would very likely 
have refused to grant Troilus a private meeting; but 
here is the meeting devised without her consent. It is 
Troilus, not Criseyde, who is panic-stricken. She listens 
to his passionate declarations, quietly asks him to tell 
her 'the fjm of his entente,' and after listening to his 
reply, says slowly and deliberately : — 

' I shal trewely, with al my might. 
Your bittre tornen al into swetnesse; 
If I be she that may yow do gladnesse. 
For every wo ye shal recovere a blisse'; 
And him in armes took, and gan him kisse. 

This is complete surrender, and Pandarus recognizes it 
as such. Criseyde has. to be sure, stipulated that her 
honor must not be compromised; but she acquiesces by 
her silence in Pandar's promise that he wdll shortly de- 
vise a secret meeting of the lovers at his own house, 
v.^here they shall have full leisure 'to speke of love 
aright.' 

It is in fulfillment of this promise that Pandarus in- 
vites Criseyde to supper at his house, and after refusing 
to let her return home in the downpour of rain, brings 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 111 

Troilus to her l)ecl. This scene is another masterpiece 
of Pandar's strategy; but it is a plot in which the ap- 
parent victim is at least an acquiescent accomplice. At 
an openly avo\Aed meeting and consummation of her 
love, such as the Italian Criseida herself arranges, Chau- 
cer's heroine would probably have balked. Her woman's 
modesty, or at least her shrinking from an irrevocable 
decision, is still to be overcome. The act must seem to 
her inevitable, not of her own choosing; and yet there 
can be no doubt that she accepted her uncle's invitation 
knowing well that Troilus was to meet her. Pandar's 
denial of her susi)icion is a virtual acknowledgment of 
its truth. As to her acceptance of this denial, Chaucer 
himself professes ignorance : — 

Nouglit list myn auctor fully to declare 
What that she thoughte whan he seyde so. 
That Troilus was out of town yfare, 
As if he seyde therof sooth or no. 

V^Tien we remember that Chaucer's 'auctor' does not 
relate this episode of the supper-party at all, it is not 
strange that he does not 'fully declare' the heroine's 
motives. Chaucer's assumed ignorance is only his char- 
acteristic way of hinting rather than asserting his own 
interpretation. Crisej^de herself settles the question 
beyond any doubt. When Troilus clasps her in his arms 
and begs her to yield, she replies: — 

'Ne hadde I er now, my swete hertc dere, 
Ben yolde, ywis, I were now not here. ' 

Again Criseyde accepts with full frankness the accom- 
plished fact. The events of this first night have been so 
devised by Pandarus that they seem inevitable as a- 
decree of fate; but now irrevocably in her lover's arms, 
Crisej'dc avows that not fate nor fortunej-iSut her own 



112 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

love has brought her there. It is a very subtle touch in 
Chaucer's portrayal of the woman's heart. To herself 
she must seem to have yielded only to inevitable fate; 
but to her lover she wished to be not a helpless victim 
but an offering of free love. 

The last barriers of womanly reluctance have been 
overcome; and Criseyde loves Troilus as passionately 
and unreservedly as he loves her. Judged by the stand- 
ards of courtly love, the relation now established be- 
tvN^een the lovers is an ideal and noble one. As Criseyde 
says, it is a love — 

ayeins tlie which that no man may, 
Ne oughte eek goodly maken resistence. 

The relation must be kept secret, or her honor will be 
gone. That is one of the conditions of courtly love. 
But, save for a half-hearted reproach to Pandarus for 
his share in the matter, Criseyde has no regrets; nor 
does Troilus ever suggest that there is anything shame- 
ful in this clandestine love. Two or three years pass in 
unbroken happiness, until the August day when the 
Trojan parliament decrees that Criseyde be delivered 
over to her father, and all the lovers' weal is turned to 
woe. Up to this point, Criseyde's behavior has been 
above reproach. With scrupulous observance of all the 
conventions of courtly love, she has accepted as her 
lover a knight who in worth and chivalric prowess is 
second only to Hector; and she has loved him not 
sensually, but nobly and purely, won not by 'veyn 
delyt' but by his 'moral vertue grounded upon trouthe.' 
But this lady whose loveliness and charm have capti- 
vated not only Troilus, but Chaucer and his readers as 
v/ell, must in the sequel become a hissing and reproach, 
the shame of all her sex. She is false to Troilus and to 
her solemnly plighted word; she allows herself to be 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 113 

wooed and won with most indecent haste by the master- 
ful but cynical Diomede. By the slightest turn of for- 
tune, this catastrophe might have been averted, and 
the story given a pathetic but heroic end. In her grief 
at the prospect of leaving Troilus, a grief the sincerity 
of which we may not doubt, Criseyde falls into a death- 
like swoon; and Troilus, believing her to be really dead, 
draws his sword and is on the point of ending his own 
life. Had he done so, Criseyde would, she tells us, have 
slain herself with the same sword. Had events taken 
this course, we should have had an ending like that of 
Pyramus and Thisbe, or of Romeo and Juliet. Or a dif- 
ferent woman in Criseyde's place might have accepted 
Troilus's urgent proposal that they defy all, and in de- 
spite of Priam and his parliament flee to some foreign 
land. Had Troilus taken things boldly into his own 
hands and resolutely carried her off, she would prob- 
ably have acquiesced; but he humbly leaves the judg- 
ment to her. It is one of those irrevocable decisions 
which Criseyde is incapable of making. She thinks too 
precisely on the event — the injury to her own reputa- 
tion and to that of Troilus should he desert his be- 
leaguered city in its need, the life of wandering exile 
which would lie ahead for both of them. It is so much 
easier to accept the circumstances which fate and for- 
tune have shaped. And so she departs for the Grecian 
camp with solemnly reiterated promises to return by 
the tenth day, 'but if that deeth me assayle.' 

But once in her father's tent, she finds that return 
is not easy. Once more she thinks upon the event — 
she may be taken as a spy, she may fall into the hands 
of lawless men. She lacks the resolution necessary for 
so bold a step. She still purposes to return — but not 
to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And there is Diomede, the 
sudden Diomede, who boldly begins his courtship be- 



114 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

fore they reach the Grecian camp. He is no ideahzing 
courtly lover, but a somewhat cynical man of the world, 
a mediseval Lovelace, whose motto is: — 

He is a fool that wo! foryete himselve. 

Diomede does not lose his heart; he merely improves a 
good opportunity to win a lady's. All the greater will 
be his conquest if, as he suspects, she has a lover in 
Troy. He needs no intriguing Pandarus to help him; he 
spends no sleepless nights. With a man of such force 
ai\d resolute will, the hesitating Criseyde is helpless. 
At first she neither accepts nor rejects his courtship. 
Once more she prefers to drift with circumstance. She 
does not cease to care for Troilus; but in her loneliness 
the company of Diomede is very pleasant. How, after 
all, shall she return to Troy; and is not the fate of the 
city, as Diomede tells her, certain destruction? On the 
very day of her jiromised return, when faithful Troilus 
is feverishly watching from the city walls for a first 
sight of her, she is listening not unwilling to the love- 
making of Diomede; and both Troilus and Troy town 
are slipjiing 'knotless' through her heart. In less than 
two months she has accepted completely the new inevi- 
table. 

Over the details of Diomede's courtship and Cri- 
seyde's infamy, her gift to him of the bay steed and of the 
brooch which had belonged to Troilus, Chaucer passes 
hurriedly, with continual appeal to the authority of 
'the story' and of *myn auctor.' With utmost reluc- 
tance, and of sheer compulsion, he narrates the shame 
of Criseyde as it stands recorded in his old books. Her 
indecision, her irresolute tendency to drift with circum- 
stance, the trait of character which Chaucer sums up in 
the phrase, 'slydinge of corage,' have brought her to the 
depths of ignominy. Criseyde's damnation is complete. 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 115 

Though Chaucer's chief interest in the story would 
seem to lie in the personality of Criseyde, it is none 
the less true that Troilus remains its central r^ ■, 
figure. He is at least titular hero. When 
Criseyde's unfaithfulness is accomplished, she fades 
from the story; the fortunes of Troilus are followed till 
his death, and with his death the poem ends. The sub- 
ject of the poem, as set forth in its opening line, is the 
'double sorrow of Troilus.' Its concluding moral is 
pointed as his soul, mounting the heavens, looks back 
and despises this wretched world that 'passeth sone as 
floures fayre.' 

Boccaccio drew the character of Troilo as the type 
of his own passionate love for Fiammetta; and Chaucer 
has left it in all essentials unchanged, though appre- 
ciably ennobled. Troilus is the ideal lover of chivalric 
love, utterly faithful, utterly humble in his self-effacing 
sul)jcction to his lady. So completely is he the lover 
that one is in danger of forgetting that he is also the 
intrepid warrior, 'hardy as lyoun,' 'save Ector, most 
ydrad of any wight.' To the shouting multitudes who 
acclaimed him as he passed through the streets on his 
way home from battle, he was not the sighing lover, 
but 'our love, and next his brother holdere up of Troye.' 
And it is this Troilus, 'al armed save his heed,' mounted 
on his bay steed, whose image sank into the heart of 
Criseyde. 

With Troilus the warrior the modern reader finds 
himself in immediate sympathy; but with Troilus the 
lover he is in danger of losing patience, unless he un- 
derstand clearly what sort of a character Chaucer is 
portraying, unless he realize how the courtly lover of 
mediicval romance is expected to behave. His utter 
faithfulness to Criseyde, his unwillingness to doubt her 
good faith long after the shrewder Pandarus sees 



116 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

clearly that she will not return, needs no apology. It is 
a point in which the mediseval code of love is in full 
accord with the conventions of modern romance. It is 
the utter humility of Troihis, his complete subjection to 
his lady, his conviction of his own unworthiness, which 
may seem to the modern reader unnatural. And yet 
here also the mediseval and the modern code are not so 
far apart. Modern convention demands that the lover 
proclaim himself 'not nearly good enough' for his lady, 
and declare that he is 'the luckiest of men' to win her. 
If the friends of the modern lover are tempted to smile 
at him, so does Pandarus more than once smile at the 
extravagances of Troilus. Nor does Chaucer take Tro- 
ilus quite seriously; he tells us that the first letter of 
Troilus was filled with 'thise othere termes alle that in 
swich cas these loveres alle seche'; and a few lines later 
he reports : — 

And after that he seyde, and ley ful hude. 
Himself was litel worth, and lesse he coude. 

These protestations of unworthiness, however sincerely 
uttered, are actually nothing but lies. Troilus himself 
had once jested at the woes of hapless lovers. 

Thoroughly in accord with the medieval depiction of 
love are the pallor and sleeplessness and loss of appetite 
which afflict Troilus, his sighs and tears and the tremors 
which seize him when he is about to speak to Criseyde 
for the first time. They are the recognized symptoms 
of the lover's malady, ^ symptoms not wholly unknown 
in modern love-stories. Before we accuse this second 
Hector of unmanliness in the luxuriance of his grief, 
we must remember that he indulges in these sighs and 
tears only when alone or in the sympathetic company 

^ See J. L. Lowes, 'The Loveres Maladye of Hereos,' Modern 
Philology, n. 491-546(1914). 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 117 

of his closest friend. From all others his woes are jeal- 
ously guarded; nor did the Greeks discover any lack of 
manliness on the battle-field. 

But even so, Troilus does luxuriate in his sorrow, 
which is only another way of saying that he is a good 
deal of a sentimentalist. With him emotion and desire 
become an end in themselves rather than a spur to ac- 
tion. Without the aid of Pandarus he would perhaps 
never have let Criseyde know. It is in his helplessness 
to further his own cause that Troilus ceases to be 
merely the typical lover and becomes individualized. 
This tendency to luxuriate in his own sorrow is the 
trait of character which, in league with fate, brings 
about his tragedy. In the first sorrow of his double 
portion he is supplied by Pandarus with the active 
force which he lacks. Through the tireless energy and 
devotion of his friend he breaks down Criseyde's reluc- 
tance to harbor love, and all is well. But in his second 
sorrow, when Criseyde must leave him, Pandarus can 
give no help beyond patient sympathy. It is no time 
for intrigue and skillful manipulation; if there was any 
way out for Troilus, it was through quick decision and 
resolute action. Of such action the sentimental Troilus 
is not capable. He defers the decision to Criseyde, who 
characteristically follows the path of least resistance. 
For himself, he can only withdraw to a temple and bit- 
terly debate with himself the question of God's provi- 
dence and man's free will. This long Boethian soliloquy 
has l>een regarded as a digression and an artistic blem- 
ish in the poem. Prolonged beyond its due proportion 
it may be; but it is no more a digression than are the 
soliloquies of Hamlet. It is thoroughly in accord with 
the character of Troilus as Chaucer conceived him.^ 

' Sec the article by Dr. H. R. Patch on 'Troilus on Prerlestination,' 
Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 17. 399-422 (1918). 



118 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

For Troilus in his love for Criseyde there is no such 
thing as free choice. It was his destiny that he should 
love Criseyde; and from the moment that he confides 
in Pandarus, his destiny is in the hands of his friend. 

It is with a mingling of pathos and irony that Chaucer 
depicts the closing scenes of Troilus's story. While 
Criseyde is receiving the advances of Diomede, Troilus 
is sadly revisiting the scenes of his former happiness, 
looking with the eyes of tender sentiment at the barred 
windows of her empty house. The tenth day comes, 
and we witness the feverish watching of Troilus. Pan- 
darus encourages his hopes, but in his own heart he 
knows better. The evidences of Criseyde's faithless- 
ness are at last too clear for even Troilus's credulity. 
His fair dream is shattered; the lady whom he has 
idealized in joy and sorrow has proved false. Nothing 
remains but his own integrity. His only hope is to seek 
release from the emptiness of a deceitful world by speedy 
death in battle. And so Troilus 'repeyreth hoom from 
worldly vanitee.' He has anticipated by a little the 
doom which hangs over his city and all his kin. He is 
the tragic victim of Fortune and of his own character. 

The dominating personage of the poem is neither Cri- 
seyde nor Troilus, but Pandarus, prime mover of the 
plot during half the story and the hero's 
confidant throughout. It is his character, gay 
and genial, shrewd and ironic, which gives the poem its 
prevailing tone, the tone of humorous irony which all 
but overshadows the essential tragedy. 

This masterly figure, perhaps the finest example of^ 
Chaucer's art in portraiture, is almost wholly the Eng- 
lish poet's original creation. The Pandaro of Boccaccio 
is a young man, the cousin of Criseida (and of Troilo 
also), a high-spirited gallant, not much differentiated, 
save in his fortunes, from the hero, Troilo. He acts 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 119 

as messenger and go-between for the lovers; but the 
much readier susceptibiHty of the Italian heroine 
makes unnecessary any elaborate scheming and artifice. 
And Pandaro is quite devoid of the humor which is so 
salient a quality of his English counterpart. 

Though Chaucer has^depicted the character of his 
Pandarus in minute detail, he has nowhere described 
his personal api)earance; nor has he given any certain 
indication of his age. But the impression we receive 
is of a man distinctly older than either of the lovers. 
He is Criseyde's uncle, a relationship which suggests — 
though it does not necessarily imply — that he is some 
years her senior. The terms of charming intimacy and 
playful banter on which they meet, the trust and con- 
fidence which Criseyde reposes in him, again suggest 
the older man and the younger woman. But the differ- 
ence in their ages need not be more than ten or a dozen 
years ; for Pandarus is not old, hardly even middle-aged. 
He is at any rate not too old to play the courtly lover. 
He has loved *gon sithen longe whyle' a lady whose 
heart pity for him has never softened. He, like Troilus, 
has times of sleeplessness and pallor, when he feels 
'his part of loves shottes kene'; but for the most part 
he bears his sorrow easily. Criseyde rallies him about 
it; and Pandarvis himself jokes about his 'jolly woe' 
and 'lusty sorrow' which will not let him sleep of a May 
morning, and humorously describes himself as hop- 
ping lamely behind in the dance of love. And yet we 
must not doul)t that Pandarus is genuinely the unsuc- 
cessful lover; it is one of the ironies of his character 
that he can win a lady for his friend but not for him- 
self. 

He is young enough, also, to be the friend and in- 
separal)le companion of Troilus. He has, he tells us, 
loved Troilus 'in wrong and right' all his life. It is a 



120 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

strong and loyal friendship, with no faintest suspicion 
of self-seeking. To his friendship he sacrifices rest and 
honor. 

For from the mediaeval point of view as well as from 
the modern, the role which Pandar plays is one of in- 
famy and dishonor; and he clearly recognizes that were 
his actions to be known he would be regarded as guilty 
of 'the worste trecherye' to his niece. She also regards 
his advocacy of Troilus's love as a breach of faith. '^ 
The conventions of courtly love hold Troilus free of 
blame, and Criseyde so long as she remains true, but 
not so her uncle, whom circumstance has placed in 
the position of a father to her, or an elder brother, and 
who betrays his trust. Had he been merely the friend 
of Troilus, acting as confidant and messenger, it would 
have been different; but as Criseyde's uncle, he should 
have been her jealous guardian. His only defense is 
that he acts from motives of pure friendship. Professor 
Kittredge has put very clearly the tragic conflict of 
duties which confronts Pandarus as the friend of Troilus 
and the uncle of Criseyde. 'This double relation is the 
sum and substance of his tragedy, for it involves him 
in an action that sullies his honor to no purpose. Since 
Cressida is faithless, he not only labors in vain, but 
ruins his friend by the very success that his plans 
achieve. This humorous worldly enthusiast has two 
ideals, friendship and faith in love. To friendship he 
sacrifices his honor, only, it seems, to make possible 
the tragic infidelity of Cressida, which destroys his 
friend. 2 

Though Pandar sacrifices all to the ideal of friend- 
ship, he is not like Troilus an idealist. He does not 
sentimentalize his friendship, nor yet his own unre- 

' » See Troilus, 3. 271-279; 2. 410-413. Cf. Filoatralo, 3. 8. 
« Chaucer and his Poetry, pp. 139, 140. 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 121 

quited love. It is one of his outstanding traits of char- 
acter that he clearly faces the facts, that he sees things 
as they are; if he deceives others, he never deceives 
himself. His love for Troilus does not blind him to his 
friend's foolish extravagance in love; he can laugh at 
Troilus as he can laugh at his own hapless love-story. 
Even while he is comforting Troilus through his ten 
days' waiting for Criseyde's return, he sees clearly that 
the hope of Troilus is vain: — 

But in his herte he thoughte, and softe lough, , 
And to himself ful sobrely he seyde: 
'From hasel-wode, ther loly Robin pleyde, 
Shal come al that that thou abydest here; 
Ye, farewel al the snow of feme yere. ' 

Pandar 'softe lough.' He is always laughing, at himself, 
at others, at the irony of life which he so clearly sees — 
Mais oil sont les neiges d'antan? — ; and yet his laughter 
does not preclude sympathy. More than once we see 
him weep at the woes of others. In his blending of 
ironical humor, clear vision, unfailing sympathy, he 
has much in common with the poet who created him. 

If there is much about him which is worldly, he is 
also in the better sense of the word a man of the world. 
Nothing could exceed the grace and charm of his man- 
ners and his conversation, playful, witty, full of shrewd 
observation. He handles Troilus and Criseyde with 
equal tact; he is easy master of every situation. Best 
of all, he is never dull. 

Troilus and Criseyde is a masterpiece not only in its 
keen analysis of character, but in the skill with which 
its plot is conceived and developed; its art Narrative 
is in the highest sense of the word dramatic. ^^^ 
Troilus first sees Criseyde on a morning in April; 
Criseyde departs for the Grecian camp on an August 



122 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

morning two years later. ^ But if the story extends 
over some three years, the actions narrated are con- 
fined to a few days, several of which are recorded 
in full detail, almost hour by hour. Three quarters of 
the lines of Book I are devoted to the events of two 
days — the day when Troilus first sees Criseyde in the 
temple and the day when he confides his secret to 
Pandarus. Beginning with Book II, nearly 5000 lines 
of the 8239 which constitute the poem are devoted to 
the events of eight days, presented in sets of two, a day 
and its morrow. These four groups of two center 
respectively on Pandar's first visit to Criseyde in his 
friend's behalf,^ on the dinner party at the house of 
Deiphebus, on the stormy night when the lovers meet 
at the house of Pandarus, on Criseyde's departure from 
Troy. Over 900 lines are given to the nine days which 
follow Criseyde's departure from Troy. The great 
bulk of the poem is thus devoted to a few significant 
episodes, and the intervening intervals are dismissed 
with concise summary. 

Each of these major episodes is transacted largely 
by means of dialogue in a series of essentially dramatic 
scenes. It will suSiciently illustrate Chaucer's method 
if we analyze one of them, the episode of Criseyde's 
departure, which fills the fourth book and the begin- 
ning of the fifth. It is divided into six scenes. The 
first is a brief scene at the Grecian camp, in which Cal- 
chas obtains the promise that Antenor shall be ex- 
changed for Criseyde (4. 64-140). The scene then shifts 
to Troy, where a parliament is held to consider the ex- 

^ We are told, 5. 8-14, that there have been three spring seasons 
since Troilus began to love Criseyde. If one counts as one of the three 
the spring in which the story begins, the total lapse of time is two and 
a half years ; if one counts exclusively of the first spring, another year 
must be added. 

" Chaucer dates this visit as on 'Mayes day the thridde,' 2. 66. 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 123 

cliange, and Criseyde's departure is decreed while Tro- 
ilus listens in helpless silence (4. 141-217). There fol- 
lows a long scene in which Troilus in his own chamber, 
first alone and later with Pandarus, bewails his evil 
fortune (218-658). This is balanced by a scene at 
Criseyde's house in which the heroine laments the fatal 
decree. During this scene she receives the farewell 
visit of her lady friends, and with breaking heart hstens 
to their idle chatter, at what Professor Price has called 
'a Trojan afternoon tea'^ — an interlude which is a 
most subtle blending of comedy and pathos. Later in 
the scene she is joined by Pandarus. This scene extends 
from line 659 to 945. It is followed by the scene in the 
temple, where Troilus has withdrawn to meditate on 
the problem of God's providence and man's freedom; 
he is interrupted by Pandarus who brings the plan for 
a farewell meeting at his house (946-1123). The book 
closes with the long scene (1124-1701) of the lovers' 
last night together, a scene which extends till dawn of 
the following day. The final scene of the episode, Cri- 
seyde's actual departure from the city, is transacted in 
the opening lines of Book V. More than 1800 fines are 
devoted to the events of these two days.^ 

Boccaccio dedicated his Filostrato to Fiammetta, the 
lady of his passionate heart; Chaucer dedicates his own 
retelfing of the story to 'moral Gower' and 'the philo- 



* Soc his illuminating article, 'Troilus and Criseyde, a study in 
Chaucer's Method of Narrative Construction,' Publications of the 
Modem Language Association, 11. 307-322 (1896). Professor Price 
finds that the action of the poem is arranged into fifty scenes, skill- 
fully contrasted in emotional tone, nf which thirty-two are conducted 
by means of dialogue, nine arc soliloquy or monologue, two are trio 
scones, while seven introduce a larger group of speakers. 

^ The student will find it interesting to make a similar analysis of 
the other episodes, particularly that of the dinner party at the house 
of Deiphebus. 



124 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

sophical Strode.' Chaucer's friend, John Gower, had 
M 1 ^°^ y^^ written Confessio Amantis, his great 
collection of moralized tales; but his early 
works, the French Miroir de I'Omme and the Latin Vox 
Clamantis, are even more pronouncedly didactic. They 
constitute an ethical analysis of the individual and 
of society as a whole which amply justifies Chaucer in 
characterizing their author as preeminently a moralist. 
Chaucer's other friend, Ralph Strode, was a fellow of 
Merton College, Oxford, a scholastic of some distinc- 
tion, and the author of voluminous treatises on logic 
and dialectic. 

Chaucer directs his book, then, to a great moralist 
and a learned professor of philosophy, begging them 
'ther nede is to corecte'; and he leaves us in no doubt 
as to the moral he would have us draw from it, or the 
philosophy of life which permeates it. Boccaccio is 
content to warn young lovers not to put trust too 
lightly in every fair lady, many of whom are, alas, like 
Criseida, ' unstable as leaf in the wind.' One must be 
cautious, and choose a mistress who will be firm and 
constant. Very different is Chaucer's moral: — 

O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she. 
In wliich that love npgroM-eth with your age, ' 
Repeyreth hoom from worldly vanitee. 
And of your herte upcasteth the visage 
To thiike god that after his image 
Yow made, and thinketh al nis but a fayre 
This world, that passeth sone as floures fayre. 

Let us flee the vanities of the world, and set our love 
on Him who in the fullness of His love died for us on 
the cross, 'for he nil falsen no wight, dar I seye.' This 
moral is reiterated in the passage where the slain 
Troilus, as his soul mounts the heavens, looks back at 
Uhis litel spot of erthe ' and — 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 125 

fully gan despyse 
This wrecched world, and held al vanitee 
To respect of tiie plcyn felicitee 
That is in heveue above. 

The noble stanzas which follow heavenward the soul of 
Troilus have no counterpart in Filosirato; Chaucer has 
appropriated them from another poem of Boccaccio, the 
Teseide, his j)rincii)al source for the Knighfs Tale. Nor 
were the stanzas present in the first edition of Troilus; 
they constitute a deliberate addition made at the time 
when Chaucer revised his finished work. 

It is plain that Chaucer has done his utmost to make 
the poem end, unhke the consistently worldly Filosirato, 
with full emphasis on its moral and philosophical signifi- 
cance. The contrast with Boccaccio, which is so marked 
in the conclusion of the poem, is also present, though 
less strikingly, throughout Troilus and Criseyde. The 
whole story is interpreted at every stage in accordance 
with the philosophy of Boethius, a philosophy which 
Chaucer seems to have adopted as his own — a pro- 
found sense of the transitoriness of all earthly happiness, 
of the capriciousness of Fortune, that incalculable 
power to whom is entrusted the working out of divinely 
ordained destiny. 

Chaucer calls his poem a tragedy; and tragedy ac- 
cording to the mediiDeval conception is, as the Monk of 
the Canterbury Tales makes clear, the story of a man 
cast down by Fortune from great prosperity and high 
estate into misery and wretchedness. But in the Bo- 
etliian philosophy Fortune is but executrix of destiny. 
Professor Kittredge has pointed out how strongly Chau- 
cer has emphasized the idea that his characters are in- 
volved in the mesh of inexorable fate. It is 'through 
his destiny' that Troilus first falls in love with Criseyde. 
It is destiny again which sends him riding 'an esy pas* 



12G THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

below Criseyde's v/indow at the very moment when 
Pandarus has disposed the lady's thoughts to answer 
love by love : — 

For which, men say, may nought disturbed be 
That shal bityden of necessitee. 

And Troilus and Criseyde are Trojans, citizens of a 
doomed city, marked by the gods for destruction. Cal- 
chas has already fled from the doom to come; and it is 
to save his daughter from a share in it that he secures 
her extradition from the city, and so precipitates the 
tragedy. Troilus, when the Trojan parliament issues its 
decree, sees the hand of destiny at work: — 

For al that comth, comth by necessitee; 
Thus to be lorn, it is my destinee. 

And so he debates, through a long passage which Chau- 
cer added in his recension of the poem, the question of 
man's freedom and God's foreknowledge, inclining in 
his argument towards the side of predestination. 

If stern necessity rules supreme, if men are but the 
playthings of Fortune, then earthly happiness is but 
delusion. 

'O god!' quod she, 'so worldly selinesse. 
Which clerkes caJlen fals felicitee, 
Ymedled is with many a bitternesse! 
Ful anguisshous than is, god woot,' quod she, 
' Condicioun of veyn prosperitee. 
For either joyes comen nought yfere. 
Or elles no wight hath hem ahvey here. 

Wherfore I wol deffyne in this matere. 

That trewely, for ought I can espye, 

Ther is no verray wele in this world here.' * 

It is Criseyde who in these lines, closely modeled on 

■ » 3. 813-836. 



TROILUS AND CRISEYDE 127 

Boctliius,' sets forth the doctrine of false felicity; Cri- 
seyde, who by her subsequent falseness points this same 
moral at the end of the poem, the moral that the world 
is but Vanity Fair and its pleasures merely transitory, 
that true felicity is to be found only 'in hevene above.* 

Not only in its concluding stanzas, but throughout 
its course, Chaucer has moralized his song of courtly 
love in terms of the stoic philosophy of Boethius, and 
justified his dedication of the poem to 'moral Gower* 
and 'the philosophical Strode.' He has given to his 
story of what is, after all, an illicit love a high level of 
moral elevation, a level which is essentially maintained 
throughout the poem. This element of its art contrib- 
utes in no small measure to our feeling that Troilus and 
Criseyde is a very great poem.^ 

1 Book II, Prose iv. For a full discussion of the Boethian element 
in Troilus, see B. L. JefTerson, Chaucer and the Consolatioji of Philos- 
ophy of Boethius, pp. 120-130. 

« See Professor Tatlock's article, 'The Epilog of Chaucer's Troilus,' 
Modern Philology, 18. 62o-G59 (1921). 



CHAPTER VII 
THE HOUSE OF FAME 

There is no evidence which enables us to assign a pre- 
cise date to the House of Fame. Since it is named among 
the poet's works in the Prologue to the Leg- Date and 
end of Good Women, it must have been writ- Sources. 
ten before 1386, The use made in it of the Divine 
Comedy indicates a date later than Chaucer's Ital- 
ian journey of 1373. Within this range of a dozen 
years, the date may, though less certainly, be further 
limited to the period from June, 1374, to February, 
1385, the period of Chaucer's active administration of 
his comptrollership of customs. It would seem to be to 
these exacting duties at the customs house that the 
eagle refers in the lines : — 

For whan thy labour doon al is. 
And hast ymaad thy rekeninges. 
In stede of reste and newe thinges. 
Thou gost hoom to thy hous anoon; 
And, also domb as any stoon. 
Thou sitlest at another boke. 
Til fully daswed is thy loke. 

In default of a more exact date, one would be glad to 
know whether the poem was written earlier or later 
than Chaucer's masterpiece of the so-called Italian 
period, the Book of Troilus. Even here, no certain con- 
clusion is possible; and the evidence, such as it is, is too 
complicated to summarize in such a book as this. But 
the weight of scholarly opinion now inclines towards 
the belief that the House of Fame was written before 



THE HOUSE OF FAME 129 

Troilus} If so, it cannot have been written later than 
1380. 

Such leisure as was left to the poet from his reckon- 
incs at the customs house must have been diligently 
spent in poring over old books; for the House of Fame 
displays a very considerable and varied reading. It is a 
much more 'learned' poem than is the Book of the Duch- 
ess, written in 1369. It shows, first of all, a thorough 
acquaintance with Dante, from whom apparently came 
the suggestion of Chaucer's flight heavenwards in the 
talons of an eagle, as well as echoes from all three sec- 
tions of the Divine Comedy. Even greater is the influence 
of Virgil. The main events of the Mneid are digested in 
the description of the carvings on the temple of Venus 
in Book I; and the description of Lady Fame in Book 
III is indebted to JEneid, 4. 173-183. To Ovid, Metamor- 
phoses, 12. 39-63, is due the general conception of a 
House of Fame. The Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, 
with the commentary of Macrobius, supplied the intro- 
ductory discussion of the nature of dreams. Other works 
the influence of which may be traced are the Antidaudi- 
anus of Alanus de Insulis, and the De Nuptiis Philolo- 
gies et Mercurii of Martianus Capella. There is no evi- 
dence that Chaucer knew the Trionfo delta Fama of 
Petrarch. 

No single source for the poem as a whole has been 
discovered, nor is it likely that any will be found. But 
in general form and structure it belongs clearly in the 
category of the dream-vision literature of mediaeval 
France, and has much in common with the Roman de la 
Rose, the Paradys d' Amours of Froissart, and Chaucer's 
own Book of the Duchess; though its marked differences 
from any known poems of the type are very striking. 
There is no reason to doubt that Chaucer alone is re- 

' Sec G. L. Kittredge, Date of Chaucer's Troilus, pp. 53-60. 



130 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

sponsible for the central conception of his plot and for 
its development, even though he has cast it in the 
mould of the vision-poems of love-allegory, and has 
enriched it from his varied reading. ^ 

Despite its debt in form and substance to * olde bokes,' 
the poem impresses one first of all by its spontaneity, 
its ease of movement, its boundless energy 
of invention. It excels in that quality which 
eighteenth-century critics designated as 'wit,' which we 
to-day are more likely to call ingenious fancy. It mod- 
estly disclaims any pretense to poetic art : — 

Nat that I wilne, for maistrye, 

Here art poetical be shewed; 

But, for the rym is light and lewed, 
j Yit make hit sumwhat agreable, 
I Though som vers faile in a sillable. 

It will merely recount to us a most marvelous dream 
which the poet dreamed on the tenth day of last Decem- 
ber. And so, half playfully, half seriously, Chaucer 
discusses in his first fifty lines the nature of dreams. 
Are they warnings of things to come, or the mere result 
of bodily disorders? It is a question which Chaucer was 
fond of raising. With what amused interest he would 
have investigated present-day methods of 'psychoan- 
alysis' through interpretation of dreams! But though 
Chaucer raises the question, he leaves its determination 
to 'grete clerkes.' If dreams are really warnings, they 
warn 'to derkly' to be of much use. So he merely re- 
counts his dream without attempting an interpretation 
of it. 

Unmindful of Chaucer's caution, scholars have tried 
to read into his dream an elaborate allegorical meaning, 

' See W. O. Sypherd, Studies in Chaucer's House of Fame, Chaucer 
Society, 1907. 



THE HOUSE OF FAME 131 

a revelation of his own intellectual experiences and 
aspirations; but the trend of critical opinion to-day is 
to discredit these interpretations as over-ingenious, and 
to accept the poem at its face value as merely a wonder- 
ful dream. At most, one may take as revealing Chau- 
cer's own more serious conviction his account of Lady 
Fame and her abode. 

The word 'fame' is used in the poem with double 
meaning. One meaning is rumor, general report, the 
mysterious dissemination of tidings. Upon the basis of 
this general report, some strange power distributes to 
men their meed of glory or reputation; and this is the 
second meaning of the word 'fame.' It is with the first 
of these meanings in view that the magisterial eagle 
gives his scientific explanation of how all reports tend 
by their own nature to fly upwards to a single center 
set in the midst of heaven and earth and sea. But in the 
third book we see first the dwelling-place of the goddess 
of reputation or glory. The poetic imagery is easy of 
interpretation. The mount of ice is slippery of ascent, 
and in its nature so little permanent that the names 
upon it melt easily away. Only on the northern side, 
the direction of hardship and adversity, were there any 
names of endurance. The lady Fame herself is a won- 
drous 'feminyne creature,' seviper muiabile, who, like 
Virgil's Fama, is of such varying stature that one mo- 
ment she seems less than a cubit in height, and the next 
she touches the heavens. Mutable in her outward form, 
the lady is equally capricious in the bestowal of her 
favor. Perhaps the most brilliant touch of poetical 
fancy in the poem is the scene where the various com- 
panies of men, the deserving and the desertless, come to 
ask their boons of glory or oblivion, and are answered 
with no rule or reason, but merely as the whim of the 
moment mav dictate. 



132 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

The significance of all this is plain enough. Uncertain 
and evanescent in itself, fame or reputation is bestowed 
in so unreasonable a way that a man of reason and self- 
respect cannot but despise it. As Chaucer stood marvel- 
ing at all this gear, some one addressed him: — 

And seyde : ' Frend, what is thy name? 
Artow come hider to han fame?' 
'Nay, forsothe, frend!' quod I; 
*I cam noght hider, graunt mercy! 
For no swich cause, by my heed! 
Suffyceth me, as I were deed. 
That no wight have my name in honde. 
I woot myself best how I stonde; 
For what I drye or what I thinke, 
I wol myselven al hit drinke.' 

Chaucer dehberately repudiates all desire for glory; 
but for fame in the sense of tidings he has the keenest 
relish; and this desire is satisfied in the house of Rumor, 
the domus Dedali, to which he is now conducted. Here 
are tidings in abundance, false and true, of all sorts of 
happenings under heaven. Here are shipmen and pil- 
grims, pardoners and messengers, — 

With scrippes bret-ful of lesinges, 
Entremedled with tydinges. 

The poem breaks off abruptly — either because 
Chaucer never finished it, or because a final leaf got 
lost from the original manuscript — leaving the poet 
in the house of Rumor; and there we find him again some 
ten years later, as he rides with a company of shipmen 
and pilgrims and pardoners, an unassuming but keenly 
interested spectator and auditor, on the road to Canter- 
bury. 

The first phase of this wondrous dream transacts 
itself in a marvelous temple of glass, on the walls of 



THE HOUSE OF FAME 133 

which are pictured in true mediaeval fashion all the 
story of yEneas. The poet recognizes that it is the 
temple of Venus — 

for, in portreyture, 
I saw anoon right hir figure 
Naked fletinge in a see. 

It is because of the poet's devotion to love that Jupiter 
sends down his great eagle to bear him aloft to the land 
of Fame, where he can hear tidings of lovers and their 
ways. 

The second book is concerned with Chaucer's skyward 
journey. The eagle who bears him none too securely in 
his talons is no mere piece of narrative machinery, but 
quite the most delightful personage of the poem. He 
is a very learned eagle, and not in the least niggardly 
about imparting his learning. With his helpless audi- 
ence of one gripped in his two claws, he lectures most 
academically on the theory of sound, and then inquires 
with fine condescension: — 

Have I not preved thus simply, 
Withouten any subtiltee 
Of speche, or grct prolixitee 
Of termes of philosophye? 

To this question Chaucer, taking the part of wisdom, 
discreetly answers 'Yis.' 

'A ha!' quod he, 'lo, so I can 
Lewedly to a lowed man 
Speke, and shewe him swiche skiles. 
That he may shake hem by the biles. 
So palpable they shulden be.' 

Though the eagle speak with the tongue of men and 
schoolmasters, the poet does not forget that he is a bird, 
and reminds his readers of the fact by the deHcious con- 
ceit — 'shake hem by the biles.' 



134 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Having lectured to his own great satisfaction on the 
wave-theory of sound, he is ready, nay eager, to dis- 
course on the stars; but his audience rebels: — 

'Wilt thou lere of sterres aught?' 

' Nay, certeinly,' quod I, ' right naught; 

And why? for I am now to old.' 
' Elles I wolde thee have told,' 

Quod he, 'the sterres names, lo. 

And al the hevenes signes to. 

And which they been.' 

Every reader of poetry, he insists, should have at least 
an elementary course in astronomy, and what time so 
favorable as this when we are in the very midst of the 
constellations? It is only when his hearer urges that his 
eyes will not bear to look upon the stars in their blazing 
proximity, that the eagle reluctantly bridles his peda- 
gogic zeal. 

It would be idle to point out all the humorous touches 
of this aerial colloquy. If the reader cannot see them 
for himself, as Matthew Arnold would have said, mori- 
etur in peccatis suis. Not even in the Nun's Priest's Tale 
is Chaucer's humor more irresistible. 



CHAPTER Vni 

THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN 

The Legend of Good Women marks the beginning of 
what is ordinarily called Chaucer's third period, the 
period which reaches full flower in the Canterhury 
Tales. Itself a collection of tales bound together by 
community of theme and by a common prologue, it 
may in deed be thought of as a direct precursor of the 
greater collection which follows. Chaucer has ceased to 
feel the overmastering influence of Italian models; and 
though the intellectual stimulus received from Italy 
was not to spend itself until his death, he is feeling 
about for a form of literary expression which shall 
be essentially his own. That the Legend was in some 
sort an experimental venture is suggested by the fact 
that it was loft unfinished, crowded from its place in 
his attention by the vastly superior conception of the 
Canterhury Tales. But experiment though it be, it 
is far from being a failure. The nine legends which 
Chaucer wrote are good pieces of narrative, told with 
the poet's peculiar grace and charm ; while the Prologue 
is, in its beauty of imagery, its buoyant freshness of 
an English Maytide, in its general conception and 
execution, one of Chaucer's most successful and most 
beautiful productions. 

The Legend consists of a series of tales, drawn from 
the storehouse of classical antiquity, recounting the 
fortunes of noble women, true in love, intro- 
duced by a prologue poem of the dream- 
vision type so popular in the allegorical literature of 



136 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

the Middle Ages. In the case of such a work, one 
need not look for any single source ; one will ask rather 
what models Chaucer may have had before him, or 
what earlier works may have suggested the scheme of 
his jDoem. Two such works immediately suggest them- 
selves : the Heroldes of Ovid, a series of imaginary 
letters sent by heroines of mythology to their faithless 
lovers, and, nearer to Chaucer's own time, the JJe 
Claris Mulierihus ^ of Boccaccio, a collection of sto- 
ries in Latin prose, wherein are epitomized the fortunes 
of famous women. The first of these works Chaucer 
certainly knew ; and there is every probability that he 
was acquainted with the other. 

In compiling materials for the individual legends, 
Chaucer seems to have done what any modern author 
would do under similar circumstances : he read all the 
accounts of his heroines which wei-e readily accessible 
to him, and selected, adapted, and combined, as his 
liteiary taste impelled him. In the case of the first 
legend, that of Cleopatra, it is not very clear just what 
versions of the story Chancer used. Perhaps a Latin 
translation of Plutarch's life of Antony was accessi- 
ble to him ; perhaps, too, he consulted the Historia 
adversiim Paganos of Orosius (fifth century a. D.) 
and tlie De Claris Mulierihus of Boccaccio. Pretty 
certainly he was acquainted with the Epitome Rerum 
liomanarum of Florus, a Roman historian of the reign 
of Hadrian. The legend of Thisbe was drawn entirely 
from Ovid's account of the lady in 3Ietamorphoses^ 4. 
65-166, though the source was used by Chaucer with 
characteristic freedom. The story of Dido is taken, 
of course, from Virgil, though a few lines (1355-1365) 

^ Similar in character, though -wider in its scope, is the De Casihus 
Virorum et Feminarum Illust'iuin of the same author, used by Chaucer 
as the model for his Monk's Tale. 



THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN 137 

are from Ovid's TTcroidcs^ 1. 1-8. For the stories of 
Hypsipyle and Medea Chaucer went, naturally enough, 
to Ovid ; ^ but he seems to have made even greater use 
of the account given in the Illstoria Trojana of Guido 
delle Colonne.''' For the story of Lucretia Chaucer 
liiuiself refers us to Livy and to Ovid,^ the latter of 
whom is his principal source. The remaining legends 
are hased chiefly on Ovid, whose influence is the domi- 
nant one in the whole collection. Other works which 
Chaucer may well have consulted are the fables of 
Ilyginus, the two works of Boccaccio mentioned above, 
and the compendium of classical mythology by the 
same author entitled De Genealogia Deorum.* Most 
of the stories of the Legend of Good Women are also 
told by Gower in the Confessio Amantis ; so that one 
may, if he pleases, see how a less gifted contemporary 
uses the same material.^ 

For tlie Prologue the problem of sources is much less 
clear. It seems to have been composed under the gen- 
eral influence of a school, rather than of any particular 
models. This school is that of the French love-alle- 
gory, with its familiar devices of a dream-vision and 
a court of love, and its unfailing accompaniments of 
May-morning, singing birds, and springing flowers, of 
which the Roman de la Rose is the great exemplar.*' 
From anions: the vast thronsx of French love-alle<2:ories 
of this type, it is possible to segregate a small group 

^ Metamorphoses, 7. 1-290 ; Heroides, C and 12. 

'^ Cf. ;ib()ve. p. US. 

8 Fasti, ;5. 401-510. 

* Chaucer's indebtedness to the De Genealogia has been convincin£;]y 
proved by C. G. Child in Modern Lanepiage Notes, 11. 238-245. 

^ For a discussion of the sources of the Legend and of the relation 
of Chaucer's work to Gower's, see the excellent article by M. Bech in 
Anglia, 5. 3l;'--3S2. 

'' For a very thoroug'h account of this poetry, see Professor W. A. 
Neilsou's The Origins and Sources of the Court oj" Love, Eoston, 1899. 



138 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

which exerted a more particular influence on the Pro- 
logue. 

Some twenty years before the probable date of 
Chaucer's Legend^ the French poet Guillaume de 
Machault wrote a Dit de la Marguerite., wherein a lady 
named Marguerite, very likely a mistress of Machault's 
patron Pierre de Lnsignan, king of Cyprus, is praised 
under the figure of the flower whose name she bears. 
The cult of the daisy was immediately taken up by 
Machault's literary disciples, Froissart and Deschamps. 
Froissart in his Dittie de la Flour de la Marguerite and 
his Paradys d" Amours uses the same symbolism, with 
extravagant praise of the daisy, in honor of another 
Marguerite ; and Deschamps carries the same device 
even farther in his Lay de Franchise^ and in several of 
his balades. As the fashion gained vogue, this symbol- 
ism of the daisy was applied even to ladies whose name 
did not happen to be Marguerite. So that one need not 
be surprised to find in the Prologue to Chaucer's 
Legend that the daisy is used to symbolize Alcestis, 
and, through her, Chaucer's patroness, Queen Anne.^ 

With the work of all three of these poets Chaucer, 
we know, was familiar ; with Deschamps he had per- 
sonal relations of pecidiar interest ; for a balade of 
Deschamps is addressed to the ' grant translateur, noble 
Geff roy Chaucier.' ^ From the balade itself we learn that 
it was to be sent to Chaucer, together with other of 
Deschamps's poems, by the hands of Sir Lewis Clifford.' 
It is entirely possible that the Lay de FrancJdse, with 

1 For a discussion of the marguerite poems and their influence on 
Chaucer, see the article by J. L. Lowes on the Legend of Good Wo- 
men, in Publications of the Modern Language Association, 19. 593-GS3 
(1904). 

^ The halade is reprinted entire in the Oxford Chaucer, 1. Ivi, Ivii. 

^ For an account of Clifford, see the article by Professor Kittredge 
on ' Chaucer and some of his Friends,' in Modern Philology, 1. 1-lS. 



THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN 139 

its praise of the marguerite, was one of the poems thus 
truusmitted from the poet over-seas. However it 
reached him, we can be all but sure that the Lay de 
Jl^ranchisey and Froissart's Paradys d^ Amours., and 
perhaps other of the marguerite poems, were in Chau- 
cer's mind when he composed his Prologue.^ It is to 
this group of marguerite poets, then, and to the still 
larger group of their countrymen who had written 
courtly allegories of love, that Chaucer is speaking in 
the familiar lines near the beginning of his poem : — 

Ye lovers, that can make of seutement; 

In this cas oghte j'e be diligent 

To forthren me somvvhat in my labour, 

VV'hetlier ye ben with the leef or with the flour. 

For wel I wot, that ye han herbiforu 

Of makings ropen, and lad awey the corn ; 

And I come after, glening here and there, 

And am ful glad if I may flnde an ere 

Of any goodly word that ye han left. 

One need only say that Chaucer's gleaning was indeed 
rich. 

In the Patent Rolls for the eighth jj^ear of the reign 
of Richard II, under date of February 17 [1385], there 
is a writ by which the king grants ' b}' special -Q^ie and 
grace to our beloved Geoffrey Chaucer, comp- circum- 
troller of our customs and subsidies in the ofcompo- 
port of our city of London,' the privilege of ^'^*°'^- 
appointing a permanent deputy to conduct the business 
which he had before been commanded to transact with 
his own hand. With what delicious sense of untram- 
meled freedom must Chaucer have closed his books of 
reckonings, and taken farewell of his not too congenial 
associates at the custom-house on Thames-bank. No 

^ Despite the contention of Dr. Lowes in the article cited above, 
these poems seem to me to have served aa suggestions, rather than as 
definite sources. 



140 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

longer need he crowd his study and his writing into the 
evening hours, after a day's work was ah-eady done. 

Chaucer was at this time a man of forty-five or 
thereabouts, and already the most famous poet in Eng- 
land. He was the 'grant translateur' of the Roman de la 
Rose; he had celebrated the marriage of Richard and 
Queen Anne in the Parliament of Fowls; he had shown 
the free play of his wit and fancy in the House of Fame; 
above all he had published but a few years ago his great 
narrative poem, Troilus. We can imagine that Troilus 
had created no small sensation in courtlj'^ circles. Never 
before had Chaucer's readers seen in English, nor in 
French, a story of courtly love told with such vivid and 
convincing realism; and in this vivid story the heroine, 
Criseyde, becomes in the end a type of all that a lady 
should not be. It is likely enough that many a noble 
lady of the court reproached the poet, betwixt play and 
earnest, for drawing so unflattering a portrait of woman- 
kind. 

In the Prologue to the Legend, King Cupid bitterly 
upbraids the poet for having translated the Romance of 
the Rose, 'that is an heresye ageyns my lawe,' and for 
having written disparagingly of Criseyde — ' that mak- 
eth men to womraen lasse triste.' Queen Alcestis, su- 
preme type of womanly fidelity in love, pleads Chaucer's 
cause. Perhaps, since Chaucer is but a foolish poet at 
best, he has sinned by sheer inadvertence, 'gessing no 
malyce.' At any rate, he has written many other poems 
in praising of Love's name. She promises that he will 
never err again; and proposes that as penance he shall 
now write 'of wommen trewe in lovinge al hir lyve.' 

These proceedings at the court of King Cupid are, 
of course, a literary device for introducing the series of 
legends which is to follow; and Chaucer has warned us 
that the whole scene is but a dream. One must be on 



THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN 141 

one's guard against reading into scenes of poetic fiction 
a record of supposedly actual happenings; yet in this 
instance there is reason to believe that the events of the 
dream-vision reflect something of reality, that the task 
of writing a legend of good women was imposed on 
Chaucer by Queen Anne, as in the poem it is enjoined 
on him by Queen Alcestis. 

That the poem was, at any rate, to be dedicated to 
Queen Anne is made clear in Alceste's command: — 

And whan this book is maad, yive hit the quene 
On my behalfe, at Eltham, or at Shene. 

Chaucer's disciple, Lydgate, writing a generation later, 
asserts in the Prologue to his Falls of Princes that the 
Legend was made 'at the request of the c{uene.' Perhaps 
Lydgate is reporting authentic tradition; perhaps his 
statement rests only on his own interpretation of Chau- 
cer's Prologue. Even on this latter hypothesis the evi- 
dence is significant. The modern critic would be less 
diffident of seeing in the poem a meaning found also 
by a nearly contemporary poet thoroughly conversant 
with the conventions of mediaeval poetry. 

It seems probable, also, that Chaucer's reverence for 
Queen Alcestis, and his passionate devotion to the daisy 
which is associated with her, w^ere intended as a compli- 
ment to Queen Anne. In the lines which sing the praises 
of the daisy, Chaucer has echoed the language of the 
French poets who, under the type of the marguerite, 
have complimented living ladies. But Chaucer surpasses 
his French originals in the fervor of his devotion. He 
says of the daisy: — 

She is the clernesse and the verrey light 
That in this derke worlde me wynt and ledeth; 
The herte inwith my sorowful brest yow dredeth, 
And loveth so sore, tliat ye ben verrayly 
The maistresse of my wit, and nothing I . . . 



142 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Be ye my gyde and lady sovereyne; 
As to myn erthly god, to yow I calle, 
Bothe in this werke and in my sorwes alle. 

These lines, as Professor Lowes has pointed out, are 
closely modeled on a passage of fervent devotion in the 
Proem to Filostrato, where Boccaccio is addressing not 
a flower, but his lady Piammetta. 

It would be absurd to suppose that this extravagant 
devotion of Chaucer is bestowed on a mere flower of 
the field. It seems hardly less unreasonable to suppose 
that it is lavished upon the mythical person of Queen 
Alcestis. What 's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that 
he should weep for her? 

To the present writer the conclusion seems inevitable 
that under the twofold type of the daisy and of Alcestis 
the poet is praising some living lady. If so, it is highly 
probable that the lady is none other than Queen Anne, 
to whom, as we know from Chaucer's own words, the 
book was to be formally presented 'at Eltham or at 
Shene.' From this conclusion it need not follow that 
Alcestis is at all points to be equated with Anne, nor 
that had Chaucer carried out his intention to devote 
one of the legends to the story of Alcestis: — 

She that for hir husbonde chees to dye, 
And eek to goon to helle, rather than he — 

he would have made her life in any way an allegory of 
the life of the queen. Alcestis is not an invariable sym- 
bol for Queen Anne, but rather a type of noble woman- 
hood and wifely devotion which, Chaucer suggests, is 
again embodied in his youthful queen. ^ The daisy, then, 

^ The view that Alcestis typifies Queen Anne is supported by Tat- 
lock, Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works, pp. 102-120, 
and by B. L. Jefferson in Journal of English and Germanic rhilology, 
13. 434-443. It is opposed by Lowes in the article already cited, and 
by Kittredge in Modern Philology, 6. 435-439. A middle position 
is taken by Samuel Moore in Modern Language Review, 7. 488-493. 



THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN 143 

plays a double role. It is immediately the type of Queen 
Alcestis who is to appear in person later in the poem; 
but more subtly it also shadows forth the poet's royal 
patroness. 

The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women has come 
down to us in two versions which present very consider- 
able variations from one another. Hitherto The Two 
this discussion has confined itself to the ^^""^'o^^ 
longer version, which modern editors have Prologue. 
designated by the letter 'B' to distinguish it from the 
shorter ' A ' version, found in a single manuscript (Cam- 
bridge University Library, Gg4. 27). ^ That both of these 
versions are from Chaucer's own hand, no one has 
doubted; but the question as to the relative priority of 
the two versions was long in dispute. The 'A' version 
contains 90 lines not found in ' B,' lacks 124 hues which 
*B ' contains, presents transpositions of several important 
passages, and numerous slight alterations in individual 
lines. Particularly notable is the fact that 'A' omits 
entirely the couplet quoted above in which the poem is 
expressly dedicated to Queen Anne, and that the passage 
in which the poet expresses his devotion to the daisy 
is greatly modified, with complete suppression of many 
of its most ardent lines. Had this version alone sur- 
vived, we should have had no grounds for seeing in the 
poem any special compliment to the queen. The daisy 
would have seemed to typify Alcestis and only Alcestis. 

It is impossible to enter here into all the intricacies 
of the argument. It must sufiice to say that virtually 
all scholars are now agreed that the so-called * B ' version 
is the earlier, and that it was written in 1385 or 1386, 

' Recent critics sometimes designate the 'A' version by the symbol 
'G' or 'Gg,' and the so-called 'B' version, the text of which is best 
preserved in MS. Faifax 16 of the Bodleian Library, by the symbol 
•F." 



144 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

probably in the latter year. Deschamps's Lay de Fran- 
chise, which seems to have contributed to Chaucer's 
praises of the marguerite, was composed for May-day, 
1385. This sets an early hmit for the date of the 'B' 
Prologue. It was certainly written before the death of 
Queen Anne in 1394. By 1387, or shortly after, Chaucer 
was apparently engaged on the Canterbury Tales, and 
would have been most unwilling to undertake, even at 
royal request, another collection of tales based on a 
plan artistically so inferior. 

When Queen Anne died in 1394, her royal husband 
tore down the palace at Shene, where she had died, and 
avoided everything which should remind him of his loss. 
It would seem that the so-called * A' version of the Pro- 
logue, which suppresses the dedication to the queen 
and obliterates the compliment paid to her in the earlier 
version, was called forth by this event and by the king's 
attitude towards it. As the Legend was not completed, 
it had probably never been presented to the queen, 
never formally 'published.' The queen's death made 
the dedication no longer appropriate; and the king's 
attitude made unacceptable to him a poem designed to 
do her honor. To adapt his still unfinished work to 
these new conditions would seem to have been Chaucer's 
motive for revision. If so, the date of the 'A' version 
must be shortly after 1394, a date which is corroborated 
by other considerations. ^ 

By the command of Queen Alcestis, Chaucer is to 
write 'a glorious Legende of Gode Wommen, maidenes 
Plan of and wy ves ' who were saints and martyrs in 
the Poem, the cause of true love. Cupid adds a further 
command that the legends shall conclude with the life 
of Alcestis. 

* For a fuller discussion of the problem see Tatlock's chapter on 
the Legend in Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works. 



THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN 145 

The finished poem, then, was to have consisted of 
tlie Prologue, followed by the legends of the nineteen 
ladies who form Alcestis's train, and concluded by tlie 
story of Alcestis herself. But Chaucer had a sad habit 
not unknown to us moderns, of undertaking a large 
task with boundless enthusiasm, and of tiring of it 
before the task was half ])erfornied. He wrote nine 
legends (tlie last unfinished), praising the virtue of ten 
of the noble ladies, and then the new and the better 
idea of the Canterbury pilgi-iniage took possession of 
his mind. With the intellectual impatience so char- 
acteristic of him, he started on the fresher task; and 
though intending to finish the Legend^ as shown by 
his reference to it in the Prologue to the Man of 
Laws Talc^ he laid it one side to wait for the more 
convenient day which never came. It is easy to see why 
the work was put aside. Charming as the Prologue is 
in its kind, it is after all only a dream, and forever 
inferior to the human reality and broad sweep of the 
Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Moreover, since 
the tales were all to be told by the poet himself, there 
was no opportunity for the dramatic variety offered by 
the Canterbury pilgrimage. Lastly, and most impor- 
tant, the very nature of the plan involved inevitable 
monotony — all the stories were to be of true women, 
faithful though abandoned in love, and all were to be 
drawn from the realm of classical antiquity. 

As Professor Lounsbury has pointed out, one can 
trace in the successive sections of the work the poet's 
growing tedium. Even as he wrote the last lines of 
the Prologue, he began to be o})pressed with the mag- 
nitude of his undertaking. The god of love warns 
him: — 

'I wot wpI that thou mayst nat al hit ryme, 
That swiche lovers diden in Lir tyme; 



146 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

It were to long to reden and to here; 
Suffyceth nie, thou make in this manere, 
That thou reherce of al hir lyf the grete, 
After thise okle auctours listen to trete. 
For whoso shal so many a storie telle, 
Sey shortly, or he shal to longe dwelle.' 

A similar note recurs in the first of the legends : — 

The wedding and the feste to devyse, 
To me, that have ytake swiche empryse 
Of so many a storie for to make. 
Hit were to long, lest that I sholde slake 
Of thing that bereth more effect and charge: 
For men may overlade a ship or barge; 
And forthy to th' effect than wol I skippe, 
And al the remenant, I wol lete hit slippe. 

Other hints of weariness may be found frequently in 
the legends ; ' but quite unmistakable are the following 
lines from the Legend of Phyllis : — 

But for I am agroted heerbiforn 
To wryte of hem that been in love forsworn, 
And eek to haste me in my legende. 
Which to performe god me grace sende, 
Therfor I passe shortly in this wyse. 

With such a warning, one is not surprised to find the 
next legend broken off abruptly in the middle of a 
sentence. One curious slip on the poet's part gives 
further proof that his heai't was not in the work. In 
the Legend of Ariadne^ at line 2075, we are told that 
Theseus was but twenty years and three of age ; only 
twenty lines farther on Ariadne suggests that her sister 
be wedded to Theseus's son. 

On the basis of the lists of heroines given in the 
balade introduced into the Prologue, and in the Pro- 
logue to the Man of Law's Tale^ Professor Skeat sur- 

1 See 11. 1002-1003. 1552-1553, 1565, 1679, 1692-1693, 1921, 2257- 
2258, 2470-2471, 2490-2491, 2513-2515. 



THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN 147 

mises that the remaining- legends were to have dealt with 
Penelope, Helen, Hero, Laodamia, Lavinia, Polyxena, 
Deianira, Hermione, and Briseis: but since the two 
lists are not in accord, we may well believe that Chau- 
cer's mind was never clearly made up on the matter. 

The peculiar charm of the Prologue to the Legend 
of Good Women is in part the charm of spring-time 
and out-of-doors, in part the charm of noble The Pro- 
womanhood as figured in the fair Alceste, and ^°sue. 
even more the buoyant joyfulness of new-won freedom, 
as of an Ariel set free. First we see the poet, Chau- 
cer, himself in his daily life — in the study and in the 
fields. Though he is no deep scholar, he modestly 
confesses, it is his surpassing delight to read books, — 

And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence, 
And in myn herte have hem in reverence 
So hertely, that tlier is game noon 
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, 
But hit be seldom, on the holyday. 

Though a book-lover, Chaucer is no book-worra. There 
is one attraction more potent than that of ' olde bokes ' 
— the beauty of nature in the fair spring-time.^ But 
when we speak of Chaucer's love of nature, we must 
be careful not to confuse this with the love of nature 
which marks more modern poets. Nowhere in his works 
is there any suggestion that he cared for the wilder 
beauty of mountains and rocks and surging sea. We 
never hear that he spent a summer in Wales, or Corn- 
wall, or the Scottish Highlands. In his journeys to 
Italy he must surely have caught a glimpse of the Alps ; 
but never does he sing of cloud-capped peak or snowy 

^ Chaucer's picture of Maytide is, of course, largel)' influenced by 
the conventionalities of the French love-allenfories : but his poetry is so 
ipoiuanpous in its enthusiasm that we may safely assume that the con- 
reution chimed with his own natural feeling^. 



148 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

summit. In tlie FranlcUrCs Tale the story demands a 
description of the rocky coast of Brittany ; but the 
rocks are thought of as terrible and destructive ratlier 
than as beautifuL They even cause Dorigen to doubt 
the benevolence of their Creator : — 

Eterne god, that tliurgh thy purveyaunce 
Ledest the world by certeiii governaunce, 
In ydel, as men seyn, ye nothing niake ; 
I5ut, lord, thise grisly feeiidly rokkes blake, 
That semen rather a foul confnsioun 
Of werk than any fair creacioun 
Of swich a parfit wys god and a stable, 
Why ban ye vvroght this werk unresonable ? ^ 

Once only does Chaucer give a sweeping view from 

hill or mountain-side : — 

Ther is, at the west syde of Itaille, 

Doun at the rote of Vesulus the colde, 

A lusty playne, habundant of vitaiile, 

Wher many a tour and toun tliou mayst biholde, 

That founded were in tyme of %dres olde, 

And many another delitable sighte, 

And SalucGS this noble contree highte.'^ 

What appeals to Chaucer in the view is the fertility of 
the plain, and the evidence of prosperous human life 
furnished by ' many a tour and toun.' As for Mt. Ve- 
sulus itself, he dismisses it with the single ej^ithet 
' colde.' The tale of Constance offers abundant oppor- 
tunity for describing the beauty and grandeur of the 
sea; but the opportunity is not improved. It is merely 
the ' wilde see,' or the ' salte see,' thought of as dan- 
gerous and cruelly malignant. What Chaucer, and the 
men of the Middle Ages in general, loved in nature 
was the peaceful and gentle, the beneficent to human 
life. The beauty of a May dawning, the song of birds, 
the fairness of the daisy, the gentle sweep of a green 
Qieadow, the long avenues of a well-kept forest — these 
1 F SG5-S72. 2 E 57-63. 



THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN 149 

were the charms which could lure Chaucer from his 
books and make him happy for a long summer's day. 
It is hard for us, bred and born in the atmosphere 
of romanticism, to sympathize with such a choice, to 
umhMstantl why one of the most beautiful of Alpine 
jiasses should have received the name of Mala Via, 
the ' bad road ; ' and yet who shall say that love of the 
kindly and beneficent is not as sane and reasonable as 
romantic enthusiasm for the desolate and destructive? 
Following on the description of Chaucer's daily life 
comes the dream-vision itself. In this charming vision 
one may notice the skill with which the poet paints a 
wide and crowded scene without any confusion or dis- 
traction of attention from its central figures. Thouo:h 
the long description of the beauty of a May meadow 
belongs to Chaucer's waking experience and not to the 
dream,' the memor}'^ of it is so fresh in the reader's 
mind that no further painting of background is neces- 
sary ; and the dream begins at once with the entrance 
of the god of love, and of the queen whom he is 
leading by the hand. They, as the central figures of 
the scene, are described with all beauty of detail, the 
noble womanhood of Aleestis dominating all about 
her. Then, after the balade has been sung, our atten- 
tion is diverted to a definite number of attendants, 
the nineteen ladies. They are in ' royal habit,' but 
beyond this single touch they are not described. From 
them we turn to a vast company without number, and 
the whole scene is filled with beauty and goodness. But 
suddenly the whole throng ceases its motion ; all kneel 
and sing with one voice : — 

' Helo and liononr 
To trouthe of womanliede, and to tins flour 
That berth our alder prys in figiiringe ! ' 

^ We are speaking of the B version. 



150 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Once more our whole attention is brought back to the 
object of this adoration, and the action of the dream 
proceeds uninterrupted to the end. 

Beyond all this beauty of nature and of fair vision, 
there is the spirit of health and free-hearted joy per- 
vading the whole poem, which is too subtle for analy- 
sis, and fortunately needs no service of the critic. 

Into the Prologue Chaucer threw all the enthusiasm 
of his art ; but the legends which it introduces were 
The Nine written, as we have seen, half-heartedly. 
Legends. Xhough the tales are well and gracefully 
told, and much more than mere imitations of classical 
authors, many readers, 1 think, will fail to read them 
throusfh. We are conscious of a 'hidden want,' the 
want of Chaucer's own participant enthusiasm. Any- 
thing which has been hastily and reluctantly written 
will be hastily and reluctantly read. There are a few 
passages of fine description, such as the highly ani- 
mated account of the sea-fight at Actium in the Legend 
of Cleopatra (a description which suggests the tour- 
nament scene in the Knight's Tale), or the description 
of the hunt and ensuing thunder-storm in the Legend 
of Dido ; there is true pathos in the story of Lucre- 
tia, and real lyric passion in the lament of forsaken 
Ariadne ; and yet we feel that the legends are in 
the main creditable productions rather than inspired 
poems. Perhaps the Legend of Thisbe comes nearest 
to being real poetry. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE CANTERBURY TALESf, GROUP A 

Excellent as is the quality of Cnaucer's earlier work, 
— rich in characterization, in humor, in pathos, in 
essential poetry, — it is in the Canterbury Tales, and 
in them alone, that we find the full measure of Chau- 
cer's greatness. In their endless variety of beauty and 
charm tiiey themselves are Chaucer. To attempt any 
critical appreciation of the Canterbury Tales as a 
whole is to discuss the literary art of Chaucer, and 
that has already been attempted in an earlier chapter. 
Detailed estimates of the individual tales will be found 
in the pages which follow. All that remains for con- 
sideration here is the happy device by which the sev- 
eral tales are bound together into an artistic whole. 

All the world loves a good story : and long before 
the days of Chaucer, collections of short tales in prose 
or verse were popular in Europe and in the ^j^^ 
Orient. Very often, too, an attempt was made Frame- 
to give to such compilations a sort of collec- 
tive unity, either by community of theme, as in the 
Lefjend of Good Women and the MojiFs Tale, or 
better by some framework story, as in the great col- 
lection known as the Arabian Nights. The Confessio 
Amantis of Gower is merely a vast treasure-house of 
stories bound together somewhat clumsily by the device 
of a lover's confession to the priest of Venus, the sto- 
ries being told by the confessor as examples and ad- 
monitions to his penitent. Pearly in the fourteenth 
century we have in English a collection of fifteen tales 



152 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

unified by an enveloping plot in the Proces of the 
Sevyn Sages. Most famous, perhaps, of such collections 
of stories is the Decameron of Boccaccio ; and though, 
in all probability, Chaucer was unacquainted with this 
work, it is interesting to compare the way in which the 
two foremost of fourteenth century story-tellers gave 
unity to their work. In Boccaccio a company of ten 
young men and women of high social standing flee from 
plague-stricken Florence to a country estate, the pro- 
perty of one of them, and pass their days in telling 
stories. On each of ten days a story is told by each 
of the company, the stories of each day dealing with the 
same general theme. Connecting links describe the 
other diversions with which the days are filled. 

Chaucer's device of a springtime pilgrimage to 
Canterbury has several advantages over that of Boc- 
caccio. In the democracy of travel it was possible to 
bring together quite naturally persons of varied occu- 
pations and of diverse social rank, from the Knight 
to the Plowman, and in consequence to give to the 
stories a greater variety in theme and manner than 
is possible in the Decameron, Moreover, the motley 
complexion of the company and the adventures of a 
journey give rise to many humorous encounters, which 
add greatly to the realism of the whole. With constant 
change of scene, and with wide range of human char- 
acters, tedium is impossible ; and the reader enters at 
once into the exhilarating spirit of travel and holiday. 

Had Chaucer carried out his original plan for the 
Canterbury Tales^ the Prologue describing the gath- 
The Nine e^'i^g ^^ the Tabard Inn would have been 
Groups of followed by sixty tales, two by each of 
the pilgrims including Chaucer himself, each 
introduced by its own prologue. The connecting links 
between the tales would have kept us informed of the 



THE CANTERBURY TALES 153 

progress of the journey, where the nights were spent, 
where dinner was taken, of all the little happenings of 
the way. Then would have followed an account of the 
arrival in Canterbury and of the doings of the com- 
pany while there. Sixty more tales, with their connect- 
ing links, would have brought us back to Southwark; 
and a concluding section would have described the 
supper given to him who should be judged the best ra- 
conteur. Of this grand scheme Chaucer completed less 
than a quai'ter. The plan was modified in the course 
of execution to one tale from each pilgrim on the way to 
Canterbury, and one on the return ; but in the work as 
we have it, many of the pilgrims are never called upon, 
and the company never reaches Canterbury, though it 
gets within sight of its towers. Even the stories which 
we possess do not form an orderly sequence. We have 
the first tale told, the Knight's, and the last, the Parson's ; 
but between the beginning and the end there are eight 
gaps which should have been filled with tales, or with 
connecting links ; so that we have not a fragment of the 
whole, but nine separate fragments, the longest of which 
contains seven connected tales, and the shortest but one. 
These fragments are usually spoken of as groups, and 
are for convenience designated by the letters of the al- 
phabet from A to I. Further confusion is caused by the 
fact that in the various manuscripts of the Canterhiiry 
Tales the order of the tales is different, even the integ- 
rity of the several groups or fragments not being always 
preserved. But the references in the link-poems enable 
us to constitute the groups ; while the geographical 
references to the towns through which the pilgrims 
pass make it possible to determine with certainty the 
relative position of all but one of the nine groups. The 
group, of the position of which we are not certain, h;is 
been assigned by Mr. Furnivall to the third place in 



154 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

the series, and has therefore been denominated Group 
C. Its assignment to this position, though based on the 
slightest evidence, has been generally accepted as a 
convenient practical disposition of the case. 

Fragmentary as is the work, we are none the less able 
to piece out its allusions to places and time with what 
The Jour- we know independently of the usual proced- 
canter- ^^® ®^ pilgrims to the shrine of St, Thomas, 
i^ury. and thus to reconstruct with some deo^ree of 

probability the route followed by Chaucer's pilgrims, 
and the time taken by them upon their joui-ney. 

Though it was possible, when demanded by urgent 
business, to make the journey in much less time, it was 
the usual custom for pilgrims to spend four days in 
going from London to Canterbury, the recognized 
stopping-places for the night being Dartford, Roches- 
ter, and Ospringe, thus dividing the journey into three 
easy stages of about fifteen miles each, with a short 
stint of ten miles for the last day. Roads were rough 
and heavy, so bad that wlieeled vehicles were usually 
impracticable ; and progress was necessarily slow and 
fatiguing. In the case of the pilgrimage which Chaucer 
describes, there were many reasons why the ordinary 
rate of travel should not be exceeded. There were three 
women in the company, and several of the pilgrims, not- 
ably the Clerk and the Shipman, were but ill mounted ; 
April, *with his shoures sote,' had made the roads 
heavy with mud, as we know from the Host's assertion 
(B 3988) that he was so bored by the tale of the Monk 
that, save for the clinking of the bells on the Monk's 
bridle, he would certainly have fallen down for sleeji. 

Although the slough had never been so depe ; 

lastly, the journey was being taken mainly for pleasure, 
and half the fun of a vacation is to take your time. 



THE CANTERBURY TALES 155 

At the beginning of Group B, which, as we shall see, 
occupies the second day of the pilgrimage, we are told 
that the date is April 18. It is on the evening of April 
16, then, that Chaucer enters the spacious hostelry of 
the Tabartl, and finds the uine-and-twenty who are to 
be his fellow-voyagers. Allowing for the change in the 
calendar, April IG corresponds to April 24 in our reck- 
oning, and at that date, in southern England, the sun 
rises about quarter of five, and sets about quarter past 
seven. Early on the morning of April 17, at break of 
day, the Host awoke his guests, and gathering thein 
into a flock, led them forth at an easy jog, ' a litel more 
than pas,' the Miller playing his bagpipes the while, till 
they came to the little brook which crossed the Canter- 
bury way, called St. Thonias-a- Watering. Here the cuts 
are drawn, and the Knight begins his tale. By the time 
his tale is ended, the musical Miller is so drunk that 
*unnethe upon his hors he sat.' Southwark ale, we are 
told, is responsible for his condition. He is not too 
drunk, however, to tell his churl's tale, at the conclu- 
sion of which the company has nearly reached Green- 
wich, and the hour is half past seven (half-way pryme). 
The Reeve's Tale next follows, and after that the frag- 
ment of the Cook's TaJe^ of which ' tale maked Chaucer 
na more.' Here ends Group A ; and the rest of the 
tales of the first day are silence. The night is probably 
spent at Dartford, fifteen miles from London. 

Either the start next day is delayed, or the story- 
telling postponed ; for it is already ten o'clock of April 
18, when the Host reminds his friends that a fourth 
part of the day is gone, and that they are wasting time. 
Group B is the longest consecutive series of tales, and 
since near the end of it, in the Monies Prologue^ the 
Host says, ' Lo I Kouchestre stant heer faste by ! ' and 
since Rochester was probably the stopping-place for the 



156 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

second night, it may be that we have the full stint of 
tales for the second day. Rochester is thirty miles from 
London. 

There is nothing to determine the place of Group C. 
Mr. Furnivall thinks the Pardoner's desire for cakes 
and ale more appropriate to the morniug, and hence 
assigns it conjecturally to the morning of the third day. 

It was usual for pilgrims to dine on the third day at 
Sittinghourne, ten miles from Rochester; and since in 
the Wife of Bathes Prologue the Summoner promises 
to tell two or three tales about Friars before they come 
to Sitting-bourne, and at the end of his story says, 
* My tale is doon, we been almost at toune,' it is reason- 
able to assign Group D to the morning of the third day. 
Group E, which contains a playful allusion to the Wife 
of Bath, is probably to be assigned to the afternocm of 
the same day, during which the party rides six miles 
to Ospringe, where the next night is spent. 

Near the beginning of the Squire's Tale, which with 
the Frankliji s constitutes Group F, the Squire says 
(F73): — 

• I wol nat tarien yow, for it is prynie.' 

Since, then, the time of day is nine of the morning, this 
group has been assigned to the morning of the fourth 
day. The position of Group G is clearly determined 
by the opening lines of the Cano7is Yeomatis Pro- 
logue: — 

Whan ended was the lyf of seint Ceeyle, 
Er we had riden fully fyve niyle, 
At Boghton under Blee us gan atake 
A man, that clothed was in clothes blake. 

A little farther on we are told that the Yeoman had 
seen the jolly company ride out of their hostelry in the 
morning, and that he and his master had ridden fast 
to overtake them. Measurin"^ back five miles from tho 



THE CANTERBURY TALES 157 

little village of Boughton-under-Blean, we get Ospringe 
as the town from which they hatl set out in the morning. 
From Boughton the road leads through the Forest of 
Blean, a favorable place for robbers, and unwillingness 
to ride through so dangerous a place alone may account 
for the Canon's desire to join the larger company. 
It is at a little town, — 

Which that ycleped is Bob-up-and-doun, — 

that Group II begins. Antiquarians are not agreed in 
their identification of this village with the picturesque 
name ; but the village of Kavbledown, just out of Can- 
terbury, seems best to answer the requirements. It is 
not yet noon, for the Cook, too drunk to tell the tale 
demanded of him, is reproached for sleeping ' by the 
morwe.' The Manciple offers himself as a substitute ; 
and it is his tale which constitutes Group H. 

The Parson's Tale apparently follows immediately 
on the Manciple's, for in the first lines of the ParsoTi's 
Prologue we read : — 

By tliat the maunciple hadde his tale al ended, 
The Sonne fro the south lyne was descended 
So lowe, that he was nat, to my siglite, 
Degrees nyne and twenty as in hij^lite. 
Foure of the clokke it was tho, as I gesse. 

The difficulty, however, resides in the lapse of time. If 
it was still morning when the Manciple began his tale, 
how explain the fact that it is four o'clock at its con- 
clusion? Because of this inconsistency in time, the 
Parson s Tale has been separated from the Manciple's 
and labeled Group I. When one remembers, thougli, 
the way time is made to gallop in Shakespeare at the 
demand of dramatic effectiveness, one wonders whether 
the inconsistency may not have bgen deliberately 
planned, so that the pilgrimage miglit end appropri- 



158 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

ately as the shadows begin to lengthen. Personally I 
see no sufficient reason for making the division which 
Mr. Furnivall thinks necessary.^ 

What Chaucer would have done with his pilgrims 
after their arrival in Canterbury we shall never know ; 
The Tale but a monk of Canterbury, nearly contemiDO- 
ofBeryn. rary with Chaucer, has given us a Tale of 
Beryyi, supposed to be the first tale of the journey back 
to London, told by the Merchant, the Prologvxe to which 
consists of a spirited account of the happenings in the 
cathedral town. This tale was first printed by Urry 
in his Chaucer edition of 1721, and has since been 
reprinted in 1876 by the Chaucer Society from a man- 
uscript belonging to the Duke of Northumberland. 

On their arrival in Canterbury, the pilgrims go to 
the ' Cheker of the Hope ' Inn, where the Pardoner 
at once makes friends with Kit the tapster, who gives 
him false hopes of her favor. The cathedral is, of 
course, the first attraction ; and thither the company 
goes to make its offerings at the shrine. The gentles, 
after being sprinkled with holy water, pass directly to 
the shrine back of the high altar ; but the Pardoner, 
the Miller, and other of the lewder sort, stare at the 
painted windows, and try to guess out the figures de- 
picted in them, and to interpret the armorial bearings. 
One of them sees a man with a spear, which he takes for 
a rake. After kneeling at the shrine, praying, and hear- 
ing service, all proceed to buy pilgrim's tokens to set 
in their caps ; but the Miller and Pardoner manage to 
steal some Canterbury brooches for themselves. Dinner 
passes by with much merry talk, and in the afternoon 

^ For the account of the journey to Canterbury aiul the time occu- 
pied therein, I have drawn on Fumivall's Temporary Preface to the Six- 
Text edition of the Canferburi/ Tales, § 8, and on Littleliale's Some Notes 
on the Road from London to Canterbury in the Middle Ages, Chaucer 
Society, IS'JS. 



THE CANTERBURY TALES 159 

each follows his inclinations ; the Monk takes the 
Parson and Friar to call on one of his friends; the 
Knight and the Squire inspect the walls and forti- 
fications ; the Wife of Bath and the Prioress walk in 
the garden (one wonders what common interests they 
found to talk about) ; the Pardoner once more seeks 
out the tapster Kit. 

Supper is eaten in grand style, the gentles treating 
the rest to wine, after which the more respectable go 
to bed, while the Miller and the Cook sit up to drink. 
Again the Pardoner makes advances to Kit, which 
develop into a broad farce, of which the Pardoner is 
the unhappy dupe. At daybreak the comjoany starts 
on its journey home, and the Merchant is called on for 
the first tale. 

This, of course, is not Chaucer ; but it is written 
in Chaucer's spirit, and is interesting as the work of 
one who, living in Canterbury, knew well how pilgrims 
usually disported themselves.^ 

For a work so composite in its character as the Can- 
tcrhury Tales it is impossible to set any definite dates. 
Several of the tales now incorporated in the Date of 
collection, we know positively, had been writ- tgr^.^^"' 
ten by Chaucer before the great work was Tales. 
planned ; and the same may be true of other tales of 
which we have no definite information. The Legend 
of Good Women was pretty certainly begun in 1385 or 
138G, and was probably left unfinished because of the 
poet's greater interest in his larger work. It is safe 
to say, then, that the idea of the Canterbury Tales was 
conceived not much before 1387, and that Chaucer 
continued to work at its execution intermittently until 
the time of his death. In the year 1387, April 16 fell on a 

^ Chaucer's disciple Lydg'ate also wrote a tale for the journey back, 
■which is entiiled The Tale of Thebes. 



160 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Tuesday, which would bring the pilgrims to Canterbury 
on Saturday, and since no mention is made of Sunday 
on the pilgrimage, it has been argued that Chaucer had 
the year 1387 in mind. But surely this is holding the 
poet down rather closely to the actual. If, however, we 
must have a precise date, 1387 has more in its favor 
than any other. 

THE PROLOGUE . 

If we set aside the wonderful felicity of phrase and 
the sparkling humor which are common to nearly all of 
Chaucer's maturer compositions, the peculiar greatness 
of the Prologue may be said to reside in the vividness 
of its individual portraiture, and in the representative 
character of the whole series of portraits as a true pic- 
ture of English life in the fourteenth century. 

To the uncritical mind the value of a portrait depends 
on its likeness to the original, the fidelity with which it 
reproduces the peculiar traits of some individual man. 
Here, as in most things, the opinion of the man in the 
street is not to be lightly set at nought ; if the portrait 
lacks fidelity to its original, it ceases to be a portrait at 
all. On the other hand, if it does no more than repro- 
duce the individual, it falls short of true art. A photo- 
graph may be a perfect likeness, and at the same time 
supremely uninteresting to all but the friends of the 
sitter; the portraiture of a true artist is interesting to 
all people and to all ages. We look at Rembrandt's 
portrait of Dr. Tulp, and are immediately convinced 
of its lifelikeness. Though we never have seen the 
original, the marked individuality of the portx\ait, the 
peculiarities of feature and expression, convince us of 
its truth. But there is more in the portrait than the 
individual anatomist of long ago. The eager passion 
to learn and teach, the quick play of intelligence, the 



THE PROLOGUE 161 

unassuming authority of pose and gesture, betray the 
scientist. We behold not only the individual, but the 
type; the abstract type is made visible and real as 
embodied in the individual. This, the end and aim of 
true jiortrait-painting, is true in its measure of all high 
art. The true ideal is to be sought in and through the 
actual. However high we may tower into the region 
of the universal, we must ])lant our feet firmly on the 
actual ; and the actual is of necessity individual. 

It is by their successful blending of the individual 
with the typical that the portraits of Chaucer's Prologue 
attain to so high a degree of effectiveness. The Wife 
of Bath is typical of certain of the primary instincts of 
woman, but she is given local habitation 'bisyde Bathe,' 
a definite occupation of cloth-making, and is still further 
individualized by her partial deafness and the peculiar 
setting of her teeth. A wholly different type of woman- 
hood, the conventional as opposed to the natural, is fur- 
nished by the Prioress. The description of the gentle 
lady abounds in minute personal, individual character- 
istics, physical and moral ; yet all these individualizing 
traits are at the same time suggestive of that type which 
finds fullest realization in the head of a young lady's 
school, who fulfills in our modern life precisely the func- 
tion of the prioress of the Middle Ages. What is true 
of these two is true of all the personages of the Pro- 
logue. The details enumerated nearly always suggest 
at once the individual and the type, as in the splendid 
line about the Shipman : — 

With many a tempest hadde his herd been shake. 

It is the individual character of the several portraits 
which gives to the Canterhury Tales its dramatic real- 
ism and lifelikejiess. Their universal character makes 
the Prologue^ and indeed the whole body of the work, 



162 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

a compendium of human life as it passed before the eyes 
of Geoffrey Chaucer. It is as a representative assembly, 
a parliament of social and industrial England, that we 
may regard this Canterbury pilgrimage. Save for the 
very highest stratum of society, the lords of the realm, 
who are after all but the golden fringe of the garment, 
every important phase of life is represented. We do 
not, to be sure, see the artisan at his bench, the sailor 
on his ship, the lawyer pleading his case ; that is, of 
course, dramatically impossible ; but more than that, 
it is artistically less desirable. Chaucer has shown his 
personages away from their daily tasks, on a vacation ; 
and, though the marks of the profession are still plainly 
discernible, it is their essential humanity which is 
emphasized ; each is measured by the absolute stand- 
ards of manhood. 

The life of the Middle Ages lent itself particularly 
well to such a process of portraiture. Though the dawn- 
ing of the Renaissance was beginning its emphasis of 
the individual, society was still organized on a com- 
munistic basis ; life was less complex. Members of 
the various crafts were banded together in guilds and 
mysteries, each with its peculiar livery. Each member 
of a guild was conscious of himself as one of a body, 
its representative and type. To-day things are very dif- 
ferent. In the so-called learned professions, perhaps, 
something of the old esprit dc coiys has survived. In 
the essentially communistic life of our universities, 
again, there may be found a strong, essentially medi- 
aeval feeling for the whole, and an approximation to 
a common type, so that one may speak of a typical 
Oxonian, a typical Yale undergraduate. But with the 
majority of us, the typical is lost in the individual as 
far as character goes, while in costume we dress, as far 
as possible, alike. 



THE KNIGHT'S TALE 163 

Chaucer's west-country contemporary, In the Pro- 
logue to Piers Plowman, has also painted a wide pic- 
ture of human life. In his fair field full of folk, all 
sorts and conditions are seen side by side, the mean and 
the rich, ' working and wandering as the world asketh.' 
It is instructive to compare this picture, which some 
have thought responsible for suggesting Chaucer's, with 
the picture furnished by the Prologue to the Canter- 
hury Talcs. Langland, with his allegorical imagery 
of the heaven and hell which bound our little life on 
this side and on that, gains much in grandeur and im- 
prcssiveness. Chaucer, with his individualized types, 
gains infinitely in reality and in human sympathy. 

THE knight's tale 
Early on the morning of April 17, ' whan that day 
bigan to springe,' the Host calls his company together, 
and at an easy gait they ride out of Southwark to the 
music of the Miller's bagpipes. When two miles have 
been traveled, and St. Thomas-a- Watering has been 
reached, the Host suddenly stops his horse, and reminds 
his guests of the agreement made overnight : — 
If even-song and morwe-song acorde, 
Lat see now who shal telle the firste tale. 

The cuts are drawn ; and, either by fortune or over- 
ruling providence, or perhaps by the manipulation of 
the Host, the lot falls to the Knight, whom every 
one feels should be the first to tell his story; and the 
Canierhury Tales begin with a high-wrought tale of 
chivalry and old romance. 

Though Chaucer is here and there indebted to the 
Thchais of Statius for a bit of description, his great 
oblijration for the KniqhCs Tale is to the 

Source 

Teselde of Boccaccio, from which he drew 

the whole outline of the story. Here, as in the case 



164 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

of Troihis, he has as his model a highly artistic 
poem by one of the foremost authors of Italy ; so that 
it becomes peculiarly interesting to see to what ex- 
tent, and in what spirit, he has departed from his 
original. 

Comparing Chaucer's version of the story with that 
of Boccaccio, the most striking fact is their disparity 
in length. Exclusive of the rimed argomenti which pre- 
cede each of the twelve books, the Teseide comprises 
9896 lines, or 1237 stanzas of ottava rima, while the 
Jf night's Tale contains but 2250 lines — little more 
than a fifth the bulk of its original. Besides this ruth- 
less use of the pruning-knife, one notices the abandon- 
ment by Chaucer of the division into twelve books, and 
with it of the conventional invocations of the Muses, 
of much of the mythological machinery, and, in short, 
of all the conventional ear-marks of the Virgilian epic. 
But more significant than these external changes are tlie 
modifications and omissions whicli Chaucer has made 
in the story itself. These can be best shown by giving 
a brief synopsis of Boccaccio's poem as it unfolds itself 
book by book. 

Book I narrates in 1104 lines what Chaucer sum- 
marizes in a dozen : — 

How wonnen was the regne of Femenye 
By Theseus, and by his chivalrye. 

Book II devotes 792 lines to the home-coming of The- 
seus, and to his expedition against Thebes, which re- 
sults in the capture of Palemone and Arcita, and their 
condemnation to lifelong imprisonment. In tlie third 
book the real action of the story begins. After a year 
of imprisonment, the two kinsmen catch fatal sight of 
Emilia as she walks in her garden, but with Boccaccio 
it is Arcita who sees her first, not Palemone ; while 
the Emilia of the Italian is not, like Chaucer's Emily, 



THE KNIGHT'S TALE 165 

80 wliolly unconscious tliat she has won tlic attention 
of the Thcban captives. As Arcita, after his release, 
rides away from Atliens, P^niilia stands on a balc(jny 
and receives his impassioned farewell. 

The whole of Book IV is devoted to Arcita, liis love- 
longing in exile, his return to Thcseus's court under 
the assumed name of Penteo. The sorrows of the love- 
lorn knight, which Chaucer passes over half humor- 
ously, are detailed by Boccaccio with all his native 
sentiment. Very characteristic is stanza 32, in which 
Arcita, who has come in his wanderings to iEgina, 
stands on the seashore all alone, and is comforted by 
the breeze which blows from Athens, the breeze which 
has been very near to Emilia. Book V, which brings 
the action up to the point of Theseus's intervention and 
the ordaining of the tournament, differs only slightly 
from Chaucer's story, save that the escape of Palemone 
is narrated in detail. In the followinjr book the two 
kinsmen collect their champions ; but instead of the 
two vivid descriptions of Emetrius and Lygurge, Boc- 
caccio devotes four hundred lines to a catalogue of the 
heroes who take part on the two sides. Book VII is 
given up to the prayers of Arcita, Palemone, and 
Emilia, and to the description of the amphitheatre. 
In the description of the tournament, which fills Boold 
VIII, Chaucer's superiority to his original is againl 
evident. Instead of his brief but vigorous picture of] 
the mclec, the Italian furnishes a series of single com- 1 
bats between the champions of the two sides, warriors 
in whom the reader has no direct interest whatever. 
Meanwhile Emilia looks on, and feels her love go out 
now to the one kinsman, now to the other, according as 
the fortunes of the battle sway now this way, now that. 
In Book IX the victor Arcita is hurt to death throujrh 
'he device of Venus and her hell-sent fury. In place 



\ 



166 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

of the brief, deeply pathetic speech in which Chaucer's 
Arcite takes leave of friend and loved one, Boccaccio, 
in IJook X, draws a long death-bed scene, less effec- 
tive because of its greater length. The 728 verses of 
Book XI are devoted to the funeral of Arcita, which 
is celebrated with elaborate games after Virgilian 
model. lu the closing book, after an interval of only a 
few weeks, is solemnized the wedding of Palemone and 
Emilia.* 

The Tcseide is by no means a contemptible compo- 
sition ; but, considering the slightness of its plot, it is 
surely much too long. Nor is the essentially romantic, 
sentimental character of the tale in keeping with its 
elaborate epic machinery. In his great condensation, 
in his simj)lification, in all his changes of detail, Chau- 
cer's superior literary discernment is plainly evident. 
\Vhat Chaucer has borrowed is the outline of the tale ; ' 
the execution is mainly his own. Mr. Henry Ward has 
shown 2 that of Chaucer's 2250 lines, 270 are directly 
translated from Boccaccio, 374 are somewhat closely 
imitated, leaving three quarters of Chaucer's lines for 
which no parallel is found in Boccaccio. 

The source of the Teseide has never been discov- 
ered. Boccaccio took many suggestions from the TVic- 
hais of Statins ; but these are of minor importance. 
Scholars are inclined to believe that the ultimate 
source was a Greek prose romance of the Byzantine 
period, which may have reached Boccaccio in a Latin 
translation. 

^ In preparing this brief synopsis, I have made freqnent nse of the 
foil outline of the poem given by Koerting in Boccaccio's Leben und 
Werlce, pp. 591—615. The best edition of the Teseide is that given in 
▼ol. ix of Opere Volgari di Giovanni Boccaccio, ed. Moutier, Firenze, 
18:5 1. 

' Temporary Preface to the Six-Text edition of the Canterbury Tales, 
p. 104 



THE KNIGHT'S TALE 1G7 

That Chaucer had already written the story of Pala- 
mon and Arcite not later than 138G, we know from the 
passage in the Prologue to the Legend of Good Date of 
Women where Queen Alcestis recites in Composi- 
Chaucer's defense a list of the poet's works 
in which he had spoken nobly of woman and of love: — 

And al the love of Palaraon and Arcyte 
Of Thebes, thogh the story is knowen Ij-tc. 

These lines can only refer to the story which we know 
as the Knight's Tale} If we can confidently date the 
tale not later than 1386, we can also be pretty cer- 
tain that it was not written earlier than 1382. Among 
the ills visited upon the human race by power of Saturn 
is mentioned (A 2459) 'the cherles rebelling.' This 
seems to be an allusion to the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. 
Similarly, the tempest at the home-coming of Queen 
Hippolyta (A 884) was pro])ably, as Professor Lowes j 
has pointed out, suggested by the violent disturbance 
of the sea which took place just after Richard's young 
queen, Lady Anne of Bohemia, had first set foot in Eng- ' 
land in December, 1381. Neither of these details is 
found in the Teseide.^ 

The composition of the KnigliCs Tale falls, then, in 
the same period as that of Troilus and Criseyde; and 

* More recent investigations have rendered utterly improbable the 
conjecture elaborated by Ten Brink {Chancer Studicn, pp. 39-70) 
and Koch (Englische Studicn, 1. 249-293, English translation in 
Essays on Chaucer, pp. 357-415) and accepted by Skcat, that the ref- 
erence is to an earlier 'Palanion and Arcite,' written in seven-line ' 
Btanzas and a close paraphrase of Tescidc, and that Chaucer later 
worked over this poem in a greatly abridged form for the Knight's 
Tale. It is now believed that the poem referred to in the Legend was 
in metre and in scope essentially what we know as the Knight's Talc. 

^Seo F. J. Mather in FurniraH Mif:crllnny, pp. 301-313, and Tatlock, 
DevclopmrnI and Chronnlogti. pp. 45-70. 

* On the date of the Knight's Talc see Tatlock, op. cit., pp. 70-S3. 



1C8 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

the two poems have much in con tnon. Each is a re-, 
working of one of Boccaccio's youthful epics; in each we 
find the same blending of pathos and ironical humor; 
in each a {^le of courtly l ove is philosophized by a', 
,'i copious infusion of lioethius, and made to point the, 
; moral that earthly felicity is transient and deceitful.^ 
{.Which of the two was written first? The cjuestion can- 
not be answered finally; but the evidence points 
strongly, I think, to the conclusion that the Knighfs Tale 
is later than Troilus.^ In the Prologue to the Legend of 
Good Women it is clearly implied that Troilus is widely 
known, that it is notorious as a 'heresy' against the 
law of Dan Cupid; whereas it is explicitly stated that 
the story of Palamon and Arcite is 'knowen lyte' — it 
has exerted but narrow influence as a counteragent to 
the poison of Troilus and Criseyde. This suggests that 
~ it had only recently been finished, or at any rate that 
its circulation had not been wide. If composed as an in- 
dependent poem earlier than Troilus, it is hard to see 
why the work should be 'little known,' It seems prob- 
able, then, that the poem was written about 1385. If so, 
it may, perhaps, have been intended from the first as one 
of the Canterbury Talcs. 

The Knight has wandered far and wide,^ and has seen 
The many cities of men, in Russia, in Asia, in 

Knight's Africa; but he has lived and traveled and 
fought in the fair dream of chivalry, — 



* See Dr. B. L. JefTerson's dissertation, Chaucer and the Consola- 
tion of Philosophy of Boethius (Princeton, 1917). pp. 120-132. 

* Professor Lowes argiics for the priority of 'Palamon' in Publica- 
tions of the Modem Language Association, 20. 841-854. 

» See A. S. Cook on 'The Historical Background of Chaucer's 
Knight,' Transactions of the Conv^cclicut Academy, 20. 161-240, and 
on 'Beginning the Board in Pru.ssia,' Journal of English and Germanic 
Philology, 14. 375-388; and S. Robertson on 'Elements of Realism in 
the Knight'e Tale.' ibid. 14. 22G-255. » 



THE KNIGHTS TALE 169 

Trouthe and honour, fredom and ciirteisyo ; 
he is as uuworltlly as his squire-son. As with Tenny- 
son's Sir Percivale, — 

All men, to one so bound by such a vow, 
And women were as phantoms. 

He tells no tale of his own wanderings, his own expe- 
rience ; he hardly deals with real incn and women at 
all. His tale is of chivalrous ideals, of knightly en- 
counters long ago, of men and women living as he has 
lived, in dream and fancy. Even these shadow dreams 
are hardly more than moving pictures in the rich and 
varied pageantry which constitutes the world of the 
knight-errant. The opening words of the tale, — 

Whylom, as olde stories tellcn us, — 

carry us far away from present-day realities, far from 
the Tabard Inn and its varied company, into the land 
of story and of long ago. It is to ancient Athens and 
the days of Theseus that we are bidden go, but to 
an Athens which the student of classical archaeology 
will hardly recognize. Though, in its simplicity and 
restraint, the story is by no means un-IIellenic, the 
manners and customs are for the most part those of 
mediaival chivalry ; and we had best forget forthwith 
all we know of ancient Greece. Neither Chaucer nor 
his knight knew much, or recked much, of antiquarian 
lore. 

If we are to read the ITriigJifs Tale in the spirit 
in which Chaucer conceived it, we must give ourselves 
up to the spirit of romance ; we must not look for 
subtle characterization, nor for strict probability of 
action ; we must delight in the fair shows of things, 
and not ask too many questions. Chaucer can be real- 
istic enough when he so elects ; but here he has chosen 
otherwise. 



170 THE rOETRY OF CHAUCER 

Four diameters only are brought before us? ^vith 
any prominenc : Palanion, Arcite, Emily, and Theseus. 
Though not characterized subtly, as Troilus and I 'an- 
darus are characterized, Palainon and Arcite are more 
than mere lay-figures of the piece. Of necessity, the 
two kinsmen have much in common. They are sisters' 
sons ; they bear identical armor ; their lives have been 
spent in closest fellowship ; they have sworn a knightly 
vow of perpetual brotherhood. It is not until the, fair 
ideal of friendship is shattered by the stern reality of 
love that they realize their disparity. Then it is clear, 
in the debate which they hold over Emily, and in their 
subsequent actions, that relatively to one another Pala- 
nion is the dreamer, Arcite the man of action. It is 
f Palanion who insists on the inviolability of their vow 
of friendship, and Arcite who, after an attempt at un- 
worthy quibbling, comes out with the plain statement 

that 

I Love is a gretter lawe, by my pan, 
. if*' Than may be yeve to any erthly man, 

and who recognizes that, since they are both condemned 
to prison perpetually, the question of prior claim to 
Emily is one of purely academic interest. Partly as a 
, result of opportunity, partly as a result of character, it 
! is Arcite who determines the destiny of the two ; while 
^ Palamon merely drifts with the current of circumstance. 
Tlie "same distinction is observed in Arcite' s^ prayer to 
_]VIars_ for victory, the definite practical means to the 
attainment of his desires; while Palamon prays Venus 
for success in his love, leaving the means of its attain- 
ment to the providence of the heavenly synod. But in 
prowess in arms, and in chivalric coxirtesy, there is not 
. ajot of su])criority in either; and the reader of the 
tale, like family herself, is unable to decide on which 
he would wish the ultimate success to light. When 



THE KNIGHT'S TALE 171 

the action closes, and the dying Arcitc betroths Emily 
to his kinsman-rival, friendship wins its final triumph 
over jealousy, and the two noble kinsmen remain in I 
our memoiy not as dissimilar rivals, but as eternal 
friends, one and indivisible. 

As for Emily, she is a fair vision of womanly beauty 
and grace, and little more. Only once in the whole 
story, and that when the story is more than half done, 
in her prayer to Diana, do we hear Emily speak. We 
think of her as she roams up and down in her garden 
on the fatal spring morning, gathering flowers ' to make 
a sotil gerland for hir hede,' singing like an angel of 
heaven. We see her beauty and recognize her worth, 
realizing that the love of her may well be strong enough 
to break the friendship of a life ; and yet we know 
her n<st at all. She is the golden apple of strife, and 
later the victor's prize ; but, consciously and of her 
own volition, she never affects the action of the tale ; 
she does nothing. When Fletcher in the Tivo JVohle " 
Kinsmen tried to develop her into a dramatic charac- 
ter, her inaction and indecision rendered her contemj> 
tible or absurd. Chaiicer wisely kept her a vision and a 
name, letting us realize her character only in its effect 
upon othei;s. 

Theseus,- the brave warrior, the man of anger, who 
is yet-ftble to turn anger to justice when persuaded of 
the right, who can good-naturedly see the absurdity of 
Palamon and Ai'cite, yet tolerantly remember that 

A man mot been a fool, or yong or old, *' 

and that he too had been a lover in his youth, is the 
most actual personage in the tale. He is, moreover, 
the motive power of the plot; his acts and decisions 
really determine the whole story. 

It is not in the characterization, but in the descrip- 



172 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

tion, that the greatness of the /{night's Tale resides. 
TTbe poem opens with the brilliant pageant of the vic- 
torious lionie-coniing of Theseus, thrown into sharp 
contrast by the band of black-clad widowed ladies who 
meet him on the way. A never-to-be-forgotten ])ictnre 
is that of Emily roaming in her garden, while the 
kinsmen look down upon her through thick prisori-bars. 
The meeting and silent encounter of the cousins in the 
wood, the great theatre with its story-laden oratories, 
the vivid portraits of Emetrius and Lygurge, all the 
varied bustle of preparation, the vigorous description 
of the tournament itself, — these, with occasional pas- 
sages of noble reflection, form the flesh and blood of 
the poem, of which the charactei's and the action are 
■merely the skeleton framework. The Juiighfs Tale is 
preeminently a web of splendidly pictured tapestry, in 
which the eye may take delight, and on which the 
memory may fondly linger. In the dying words of 
Arcite : — 

What is this world ? What asketh men to have ? 
Now with his hive, now in his colde grave 
AUonc, withouten any companye, — 

the terrible reality of the mystery of life, its tragedy 
and its pathos, are vividly suggested ; but it is only 
'.suggested, as a great painting may touch on what is 
most sacred and most deep. 

It is this e6scn_tially pictorial character of the poem 
which accounts for the slight success of Fletcher's at- 
tempt to translate it into drama, the poetry of action. 
In the Tvo Noble Kinsmen the slenderness of the 
plot, and the inconsistency of the characters, which we 
have accepted without question in the Kn'u/liVs Talc^ 
become painfully apparent. The splendid effectiveness 
of silence, which Chaucer has utilfzcd so artistically 
in the first appearance of Emily, and in the encounter 



THE MILLER AND THE REEVE 173 

in the wood, is necessarily sacrificed to dramatic exi- 
gencies. The tournament is transacted o£E the stage^ 
and the descriptions of tlie three oratories drop out 
altogether. A reading of Fletcher's drama is of the 
greatest help in enabling one to recognize the distinc- 
tive poetic qualities of Chaucer's narration; just as a 
comparison with Dryden's brilliant modernization of 
the tale will help one to realize the peculiar charm of 
Chaucer's simple, unassuming diction. 

THE TALES OF THE MILLER AND THE REEVE 

The Knight's long tale of love and chivalry won, as 
it deserved, universal approbation : — 

In al the route nas ther yong ne old 
That he ne seyde it was a noble storio 
» And worthy for to drawcn to memorie. 

The Host, chuckling with delin:ht over the success- 
ful beginning of his story-telling scheme, turns to the 
Monk and courteously asks him to tell 'sumwhat to 
quyte with the Knightes tale.' The choice of the ^lonk 
was dictated, doubtless, by the post's punctilious re- 
gard for social rank, the worthy ecclesiastic being after 
the Knight the most dignified personage of the com- 
pany. But since the Monk must of necessity tell a 
serious tale, which could not offer a sufficiently effec- 
tive contrast to the Knight's, the poet, as overruling 
providence of the pilgrimage, devises an interruption 
of the Host's less artistic scheme by the obstreper- 
ous intrusion of the IMiller; who, though so drunk 
that ' unnethe upon his hors he sat,' insists that he 
knows a ' noble tale,' with which to repay the Knight. 
The ^ost, as complete tavern-keeper, knows not only 
the deference to be paid to men of rank, but also the 
more delicate diplomacy of dealing with a drunken 
man. ^ When his soft-spoken words of deprecation fail 



174 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

to silence the unruly Miller, he recognizes that discre- 
tion is the better part of courtesy, and suffers him to 
proceed. 

After making the quite unnecessary ' protestation ' 
that he is drunk, — a fact of which he is convinced 
by the sound of his own voice, — he announces that his 
tale is to be of a carpenter and his wife, and of how a 
clerk made a fool of the carpenter. But this theme 
treads on the toes of another in the company. The 
General Prologue tells us of the Reeve that — 

In you the he lerned hadde a good mister ; 
He was a wel good wrighte, a carpenter. 

So we are prepared for the change from the ' noble 
tale' of the Knight to the ribald tale of the Miller 
by an altercation between drunken Robin and the 
white-haired Osewold, who thinks the tale directed 
against himself. And when the Miller's tale is done, 
the wounded professional pride of the Reeve furnishes 
us with a companion tale of how two Cambridge stu- 
dents got the better of a cheating miller. 

The tales of the Miller and the Reeve are so closely 
linked by this dramatic interlude, and are moreover so 
similar in spirit, that it will be convenient to treat 
them together. 

For neither of these tales do we possess Chaucer's 
immediate source ; but there exist stories sufficiently 
like them to indicate that in neither case did 
Chaucer draw wholly on his own imagination. 
In the 3Iillcr^s Tale we have a combination of two 
stories originally distinct — the story of a man who is 
made to believe that the great day of reckoning is at 
hand, represented by a German tale of one Valentin 
Schumann, printed in 1559, and the story of Absolon 
and Nicholas, to which an analogue is found in a col- 
lection of novelle by Massuccio di Salerno, who flonr- 



THE MILLER AND THE REEVE 175 

ishcd in the latter half of the fifteenth century. Otlier 
similar tales are found in German and in Latin.* 

A tale similar to that of the Heeve is found in Boc- 
caccio's Decameron, Day 9, Nov. 6 ; and still closer to 
Chaucer are two French fahliaux which are reprinted 
in the volume of Originals and Analogues published 
by the Chaucer Society.^ 

The point of strongest resemblance between the 
tales of the Miller and the Keeve is their extreme in- 
decency, an indecency which cannot be wholly The Two 
explained away as due to the frankness of a ''^^'^^ 
less delicate age. Chaucer, himself, was quite aware 
that to many of his readers these tales would be objec- 
tionable. Half seriously, half playfully, he prefaces 
them with an apology in which he warns away the 
sc^ueamish, and at the same time disclaims any per- 
sonal responsibility for the tales. 

What sholde I more seyn, but this Millero 
He nolde his wordes for no man forbore, 
But told bis cborlcs tale in his manere ; 
Me thinketh that I shal rcherce it here. 
And therfore every gentil wight I preye, 
For goddes love, demeth nat that I seye 
Of eve! entente, but that I moot reherce 
Hir tales alle, be they bettre or werse, 
Or elles falsen som of my matere. 
And therfore, whoso list it nat yhere, 
Turns over the leef, and chese another tale ; 



Avyscth yow and putte me out of blame ; 
And eek men shal nat make ernest of game. 

^ Those who wish to go fartlier with Ihis not very profitable theme 
may consult the papers of R. KiJhlpr, in Anglia, 1. 38-44, ISfV-lSS ; 2. 
135-13G ; of II. Variilia!;eii, in AiKjlia, 7. Anzeigfer 81-8."); of L. Frlin- 
kel, in Anglia, 10. 2()l-!ii3 ; and of E. Kijlbiiig', in Zcitschrijl J"ur vtr- 
ylfichende Litcraturgeschlrhte, 12. 448-450; 13. 112. See also L. Proe- 
Bcholdt, in Anglia, 7. 117. 

* Pp. 85-102. For a full discussion of the sources of the Reeve^s 
Tale, see the paper by II. Varuhagen, in Englische Studim, 0. 240-2G0. 



176 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

This is in effect a repetition of the disclaimer given in 
the General Prologue, 11. 725-742 ; what is its valid- 
ity ? That he must rehearse all tiie tales of all his pil- 
grims precisely as they were told, whatever their char- 
acter, or else ' falsen som of his matere,' is precisely 
the argument by which the followers of Zola defend 
their ultra-realism. The simple answer to all this is 
found in the fact that the great poets have never con- 
ceived of their function as that of a mere photographer 
or stenographer. They ' imitate nature,' to be sure, but 
with a difference. If it is their duty to observe, it is 
also their duty to select, to adapt, to idealize. It would 
have been perfectly possible to give a true picture of 
the varied humanity which made up the Canterbury 
pilgrimage, without suffering these churls to tell their 
'cherles tales,' which no sophistry can elevate into 
true art. 

I do not believe that Chaucer was in the least 
deceived by this argument. He deliberately chose 
to insert the tales, not as works of art, nor even as a 
necessary part of a great artistic whole, but merely 
as a diverting interlude. Making a rather considerable 
""allowance for greater freedom of speech, they are tales 
of the sort which entirely moral men of vigorous na- 
ture haveiound diverting, and at which the less vigor- 
ous Have alwaysraised their eyebrows. Having chosen 
to insert" the tales, he playfully answers the anticipated 
charges of the moralist, by assuring him that he wrote 
the tales unwillingly, compelled to do so by the higher 
moral consideration of strict truthfulness. Inasmuch 
as the Cantcrhury Tales are in the main truly great 
art, and as these tales are by thefr nature not true art, 
I think it unfortunate that Chaucer included them ; 
but I am very far from considering them as evidence 
of immoral character in their author. 



THE MILLER AND THE REEVE 177 

What I take to be Chaucer's serious defense of these 
tales is contained in a single line, which concludes the 
passage quoted above : — 

And eek men shal nat make erncst of game. 

In other words, both these tales narrate practical johes, 
and their comic interest deper.^ ou the^ clever working- 
out and complete success of the trick. .In thc_Jii7/cr's 
Ta/e, for example, the attention is centred on the 
ludicrous gullibility of the jealous carpenter and 

the clever manceuvrinfr of hende Nicholas, not on..the 

. . . . '^ — — 

immoral purpose for which the trick is devised. So in 

~i;Tie liceve's Tale^ there is a sort of rough poetic justice^ 

in the complete discomfiture of the cheating miller; 

and on this, rather than on the immoral character of^.tho 

retribution, the effectiveness of the story depends. It is 

not immorality for immorality's sake, but inimqrality 

for the joke's sake. Of course, this does not lessen tlie 

moral blame of the two Cambridge students, when 

seriously considered; but it very materially lessens 

the immorality of the story. It is only when the reader 

reverses th'e"emphasis, when, in Chaucer's words, he 

makes earnest of game, that the tales become actively 

immoral. 

In the Miller s Tale^ in particular, the attention is 
diverted from the lustful and nasty features of the story, 
to the brilliant charactei;izations, and to the consummate 
skill with whicirthe narrative isjransacte.d- In none of 
Chaucer's tales is there more convincing proof of his 
mastery of the technique of story-telling. The tale con- 
sists ofTwo comic in trigues.combined into a single unity. 
It will l)e worth while to notice with some particularity 
the steps by which this end is attained. 

Since Nicholas is to be the grime. mover of the action, 
without whose machinations neither plot could have 



178 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

matured, tlio first tliirty-tlirce lines of tlie t.ilo arc de- 
voted to a^vivid (^s('Ti])tiou of liis person and pci tonality. 
The carjienter, as passive centre of the plot, is next de- 
scribed more briefly. Nearly forty lines are then devoted 
to a description of AUsoim, whose attractiveness consti- 
tutes the causa cansans for both intrifrues. These por- 
traits, and that of Absolon which follows a little later, 
are done with all the skill which marks the portraiture 
of the General Prologue. After another forty lines, in 
which the j-elation s b_e t\veen_ Nicholas and Alisou2i_are 
established, the main action is fully launched, and the 
natural pause which ensues is utilized for the introduc- 
tion of the second action. Absolon is described, and his 
persistent attentions to Alisoun are recorded, eighty- 
four lines sufficing to set the new intrigue afoot. Re- 
suming the thread of the main argument, some two 
hundred and fifty lines are devoted to the clever scheme 
by which the car])enter is beguiled into believing that 
a second Noah's flood is toward, and the two lovers at- 
tain their end. Particularly rich in humor is the scene 
where Nicholas, in feigned trance, predicts the coming 
deluge, a prediction for which we liave been artistically 
prepared by the earlier statement thfit_ all^Nichplas's 
fancy ^^^asjtuiiiedipi^to lerne astrologye.' Again there 
is a natural pause in the action, in which the story 
reverts to Absolon. Because the carpenter, in instant 
fear of the flood which is at hand, has kept all day to 
his house, Absolon is led to believe that he is from 
home, and consequently chooses this particular night 
to pay his addresses. He goes tO-AlJsoun's window, 
where he is duped, and has his revenge. This section 
of the tale occupies about a hundred and sixty lines. 
Thirty-eight lines now suffice to end the tale. The 
frantic cry of 'Water!' uttered l)y Nicholas as a result 
of Absolon's revenge, wakes the sleeping carpenter, and, 



THE COOK'S TALE 179 

fitting in with his expectation of a flood, leads liini to 
cut the ropes which suspend his ark of safety, thus 
bringing about the catastrophe of the main action. 

It is certainly a pity that such excellent skill was '' 
expended on a story which many of Cliaucer's readers '] 
will prefer to slvip ; and yet, as we have seen, it is this ' 
very skill which does most to niinin.iize_.the objection- 
aBle character of the tale. "^ 

THE cook's tale 
Whoever may have been offended at the freedom of 
the lieevcs Tale, jo^^y Hodge of Ware was not of the 
strait-laced sect : — 

The Cook of London, whyl the Reve spak, 
For joye, him thoughte, he clawed him on the bak, 
*HaI ha!' quod he, 'for Cristes passioun, 
« This miller hadde a sharp conclnsioun 

Upon his argument of herbergage I * 

Perhaps, in his vocation of cook, he has had to do with 
cheating millers, and consequently finds special relish 
in the tale. He volunteers a ' litel jape that fil in our 
citee,' which is to deal, saving the presence of mine 
host, with a London ' hostileer.' After some playful 
allusions to the tricks of the culinary profession, the 
Host bids him proceed. 

The tale of the Cook is a mere fragment, extending 
only to fifty-eight lines, and though we have a fine 
piece of portraiture in the picture of Perkin Revellour, 
who is to bo the hero, and a fairly complete ?n(sc en 
scene, we have not enough of the story to form any 
guess as to its plot. We can only surmise that it is to 
be a ' merry ' tale of the same general type as those 
of the Miller and the Peeve. Perhaps it was a recog- 
nition of ^ the fact that three tales of this sort on end 
would be too larfro a dose of ' mirth ' that caused the 



180 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

poet to abandon it; for, as the old scribe says, 'Of 
this Cokes tale maked Chaucer na more.' 

There is a spurious tale, certainly not by Chaucer, 
which some of the nianuscrij)ts, and the old editions, 
insert after this fragment under the title of The Cokes 
Talc of Gamelyn; but a discussion of this tale, which 
has some interest because of its relation to Shakespeare's 
As You Like It^ is outside the scope of the present 
work.* 

^ The tale may be found in the appendix to vol. iv of Skeat's Ox' 
ford Chaucer. For a discussion of it, see the article by E. Lindner, ia 
Englische Studicu, 2. 94-114, 321-343. 



CHAPTER X 
THE CANTERBURY TALES, GROUP B 

THE MAN OF LAW'S TALE 

The first day's journey had brought the band of pil- 
grims only fifteen miles on their way ; and the night 
liad been spent at the little town of Dartford in Kent.* 
Either the company had slept long and started late on 
the second day's ride, or the beauty of a sunny morn- 
ing in mid-April had made the diversion of stor3--tell- 
ing superfluous; for it is already ten o'clock when 
the Host suddenly turns his horse about, and reminds 
his fellow-voyagers that a fourth part of the day is 
already sjient, and time is wasting. The Man of Law 
is called on to begin the entertainment of the day. As 
a lawyer, he is too well schooled in the law of contracts 
to refuse assent: — 

*To breke forward is not myn entente. 
Bihest is dette, and I wol holde fayn 
Al my bilieste ; I can no better seyu ; ' 

but since the tale he is minded to tell is in effect the 
legend of a good woman, he feels not unnatural hesi- 
tation in nai'rating it, when Chaucer, as all the pilgrims 
know, has written a whole volume of such legends. 

' I can right now no thrifty tale seyn, 
But Chaucer, though he can but lewedly 
On metres and on ryniing craftily,^ 

1 Cf. p. 1.",. 

2 Tlie (h^preciation of Chaucer's skill is to be considered a bit of the 
poet's lialf-huniorons modesty, rather than as representing dramatically 
the opinion of the Man of Law. 



182 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER • 

Hath seyd hem in swich English as he can 
Of olde tyme, as knoweth many a man. 
And if he have not seyd hem, lere brother, 
In o book, he hathe seyd hem in another.' 

Hereupon follows a catalogue of women faithful in 
love whose stories Chaucer had narrated, or planned 
to narrate, in the Legend of Good Women, referred to 
here as the Seintes Legende of Cupyde. How shall he, 
the Man of Law, presume to rival such a master in 
this particular art? Ovid's story of the daughters of 
Pierus who dared contend with the Muses, and were 
for their presumption turned into chattering magpies, 
should give him pause : — 

♦ But nathelees, I recche noght a bene 
Though I come after him with hawe-bake ; 
I speke in prose, and lat him rymes make.' 
And with that word he, with a sobre chore, 
Bigan his tale, as ye shal after here. 

Though many of the incidents of the tale of Con- 
stance are found in other, earlier stories, Chaucer's 
immediate source was the Anglo-Norman 
Chromcle of the Englishman, Nicholas Tri- 
vet, a voluminous English scholar and historian, who 
flourished in the first half of the fourteenth century.^ 
Trivet's chronicle, written in the Anglo-Norman French 
of the Enorlish court, devotes a lon^ section to the his- 
tory of * la pucele Constaunce,' ^ the account agreeing 
in all important details with that given by Chaucer. 
Chaucer has very considerably condensed the story, has 

^ The Dictionary of National Biograpky, folIowiDg- the early bio- 
graphers, Leland and Bale, g'ives the date of his death as 1328; but 
since his chronicle includes the reign of Pope John XXII, who died in 
13;M, the date is certainly wrong. 

- As reprinted in Originals and Analogues, the story occupies 25 
pages. Tlie text is provided with a running summary and a translation 
in English (pp. 1-53). 



THE MAN OF LAW'S TALE 183 

added many original passages of a reflective or lyrical 
character, and has altered some of the minor details.^ 
Thus, for example, Trivet narrates in detail how King 
Alia slew his mother with his own hands,^ an episode 
which Chaucer has preferred to soften down into a inere 
vague statement. If the student will take the trouble 
to pick out Chaucer's original additions to the tale, as 
indicated in the foot-note, he will find that they com- 
prise all the most beautiful jjassages in the tale. Thus, 
when Constance and her child are put to sea in the rud- 
derless boat. Trivet merely says : ' The mariners with 
great grief commended her to God, praying that she 
might again return to land.' It is Chaucer who has 
added the sublimely beautiful lines (825-868) which 
show her noble resignation, and supreme trust in God. 
Of what wondrous pathos is the stanza : — 

Hir litel cliild lay wepiiig in hir arm, 
And kueling, pitously to him she seyde, 
'Pees, litel soue, I wol do thee non harm.' 
With that hir kerchef of hir heed she breyde, 
And over his litel yen she it leyde ; 
And in hir arm she luUeth it fnl faste, 
And into heven hir yen up she caste. 

Chaucer's less gifted contemporary, John Gower, has 
also told the story of Constance in the second book 
of liis Confessio Amantis ; but that both poets went 

^ About .loO lines of the 1029 comprising the tale are not represented 
in Trivet. Four of the a<lded stanzas (11. 421-427, 771-777, 925-981, 
1135-1141) are translated from the De Contemptu Mundioi Pope Inno- 
cent III, a work of which Chaucer tells us (Prologue to the Legend of 
Good Women, A version, 11. 414-41")) that he had made a transla- 
tion (now lost). One stanza (11. 813-819) is from Boetliius. The rest is 
Chaucer's own. Chaucer's additions comprise lines 190-203; 270-287; 
295-315; 330-343; 351-371; 400-410; 421-427; 449-462; 470-504; 
631-658; 701-714; 771-784; 811-819; 825-868; 925-945; 1037-1043; 
1052-1078; 1132-1141. 

2 ' And with that he cut off her head and hewed her body all to pieces 
as she lay naked in her bed ' (p. oH). 



184 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

independently to Trivet is proved by the fact that each 
gives details found in Trivet, but not found in the other. 
But a few points of agreement between Chaucer and 
Gower as against Trivet make it probable that there is a 
relation closer than that of a common source, that one 
poet borrowed a touch here ajid there from the other's 
version. If so, the borrower was apparently Chaucer; for 
if Gower had had Chaucer's text before him as he wrote, 
it is hard to believe that he would not have appropri- 
ated some of the strikingly beautiful passages peculiar 
to that version.^ As the Confessio Amantis was not pub- 
lished till 1390, we can with some confidence assign the 
composition of the Man of Law's Tale to the last ten 
years of Chaucer's life, a date which is in accord with 
other indications which we have as to the chronology of 
the Canterbury Tales.^ 

The Man of Law's statement that he learned the 
story from a merchant is not to be taken seriously; 



1 For a full discussion of the question, see the papers by E. Llicke, 
'Das Leben der Constanze bei Trivet, Gower, und Chaucer,' in 
Anglia, 14. 77-122, 147-185. 

2 For the evidence which points to a date as late as 1390 (perhaps 
later than 1394) for the Man of Law's Tale, see J. S. P. Tatlock, De- 
velopmenl and Chronology, pp. 172-188. Critics have been inclined to 
see in the Man of Law's statement (B. 77-89) that Chaucer would 
never write such 'unkinde abhominaciouns ' as the stories of Canace 
and of Apollonius of Tyre, an implied allusion to the Confessio 
Amantis, which includes these tales. Though both stories must have 
been familiar quite independently of Gower's telling of them, this 
reference, if made shortly after the publication of the Confessio, may 
have been intended as a sly dig at a brother! poet. There is no suffi- 
cient reason, however, for believing that these lines indicate a falling- 
out between the two friends. The only real basis for a supposed es- 
trangement is the fact that in later recensions of the Confessio Gower 
omitted, along with his praise of King Richard, the passage of gracious 
compliment to Chaucer (8. 2941'''-29.59*) found in the first recension. 
It is at least hazardous to assume that this omission is to be explained 
only on the ground of lapsed cordiality. But see Tatlock, op. cit, 
p. 173, n. 2. 



THE MAN OF LAW'S TALE 185 

but it suggests, none the less, the way in which many 
nieiliieval tales were transplanted from one country to 
another. J 

Looked at merely as a narrative, the tale has but 
little claim to greatness. It consists of a series of im- 
probable episodes, bound to":ether merely by r^^ „ 

I • 1 1 . Ill -^ -^ The Tale 

the accident tliat they all happen to the same as a Work 

heroine. Though in the fact that the fleet 
which eventually saves Constance, and brings her back 
to Home, had been dispatched by the emperor on a 
punitive expedition against the 'cursed wikked Sow- 
danesse,' we see an attempt to link the beginning of 
the tale with its close, there is too much of accident, 
and too little of direct causal connection, in the events 
of the tale to leave it any organic unity. The episode 
of tlie steward of the ' hethen castel,' who comes down 
to Constance's ship and tries to violate her, is in no 
way connected with what precedes or follows. The tale 
ban all the structural defects of the tj^pical romance 
or saint's legend. 

What raises this legend into the realm of true art, 
and even gives to it a high degree of spiritual unity, 
is the wonderfully beautiful personality of Constance. 
There is little to be said of this character by way of 
analysis ; there is no baffling problem of motives nor 
complexity of warring qualities to fascinate the intel- 
lect, no development of character under stress of cir- 
cumstance ; from the first she is utterly transparent, 
utterly perfect. We see her in prosperity, we see her 
in bitterest adversity, in what she believes to be the 
liour of her death ; she is the same always, unmoved, 
unshaken. The great Christian virtues of humility, 
faith, hope, charity, sum up the whole of her nature; 
by these stars she steers her rudderless boat as she 
sails in the salt sea ; by these she lives in the court of 



186 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

emperor and king. So little is she moved by outward 
circumstance, that the mere events of the story sink 
into insignificance ; we forget their improbability, or 
rather, in the presence of such superhuman perfection, 
the supernatural seems merely natural. Chaucer does 
not try to explain these miracles away; he accepts 
them frankly, even gladly : — 

Men migliten asken why she was not slayn ? 
Eek at the feste who miglite hir hody save ? 
And I answere to that deinaiinde agayn, 
Wlio saved Daniel in the horrible cave ? 

Or again, ' Who kepte hir fro the drenching in the see?' 
Chaucer asks, and answers: — 

Who bad the foure spirits of tempest, 
That power han t'anoyen land and see, 
* Bothe north and south, and also west and est, 
Anoyeth neither see, ne land, ne tree ? ' 
Sothly, the coniaundour of that was he. 
That fro the tempest ay this womman kepte 
As wel whan that she wook as whan she slepte. 

When we see her set adrift again with her ' litel sone,' 
weeping piteously over his distress though not her own, 
we are inevitably reminded of another Mater Dolorosa^ 
the ' Moder and mayde bright, Marye,' to whom she 
prays. We are quite ready to agree with Ten Brink 
when he says : ' The heroine here appears almost a 
personification of Christianity itself, such as it comes 
to heathen nations, is maligned and persecuted, yet, in 
the strength of its Founder, endures in patience and 
finally remains victorious.' ^ Be it remembered, how- 
ever, that she is more than a personification, a per- 
sonality. 

I fancy that we are often inclined to underestimate 
the art which is requisite to the depiction of such a 
1 Hist. Eng. Lit. (Eng. trans.) 2. 156. 



THE SHIPMAN'S TALE 187 

fifiriire as that of Constance. It is precisely in its sim- 
plicity, its absence of all complexity, that the difficulty 
of the portrayal resides. By ' character ' we mean the 
markings or traits which distinguish one individual 
from another, or rather from our somewhat vaguely 
conceived ' normal ' man or woman. In biddino- us 
pattern oixr imperfect natures after the one perfect 
nature, Christianity bids us shake off our personal 
idiosyncrasies, the traits or markings — blemishes, if 
you will — which distinguish us from our pattern. It fol- 
lows logically that, if we were able to carry out this 
Christian ideal, we should lose the distinguishing 
traits which constitute our character as individuals. 
Constance has attained the ideal ; she is perfect ; and 
consequently her ' character ' seems to us shadowy or 
unreal. In a sense she has no character. To depict 
such a nature as this in its ideal perfection, and yet 
to make us feel the force of her personality, and love 
her and sympathize with her, to accomplish this, is 
a greater artistic triumph than to create a Ciiseyde. 
Chaucer is here working in the spirit of the Christian 
Middle Age, which loved the perfect, the universal; it 
was the Renaissance which taught us to set such store 
by the necessarily imperfect individual. 

THE SHIPMAN'S TALE 

The tale of Constance has given the lie to the Man 
of Law's modest statement that he knows no 'thrifty' 
tale. At its conclusion the Host rises in his stirrups 
with the exclamation : — 

* This was a thrifty tale for the nones ! * 

He is apparently in the mood for 'thrifty' tales, for 
he turns next to the parish priest, the ' povre persoun 
of a toun,' and demands of him a tale. But he has 



188 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

unfortunately larded his request with two of the oaths 
without which his tongue seldom wags ; and the good 
parson is scandalized : — 

The Persone him answertle, * hen'cite! 
What eyleth tlie man so sinfully to swere ? ' 

Such unreasonable objection to the picturesque in 
language can come only from a follower of the new 
sect of Wiclif. The Host makes no great pretense to 
religion ; but he hates a heretic ; he ' smells a loller in 
the wind,' and dreads a ' predicacioun ' after the man- 
ner of Wiclif's itinerant preachers. There is another 
staunch upholder of orthodoxy in the person of the 
conscienceless Shipman. 

' He shal no gospel glosen heer ne teche. 

We leve alle, in tlie grete god,' quod he. 
' He wolde sowen soni difficultee 

Or springen cokkel in our clene corn.' * 

Such a calamity the Shipman stands ready to avert by 
telling a tale himself, which he promises sliall be free 
from philosophy or other scientific lore. One need not 
dilate on the rich humor of this episode, wherein Chau- 
cer chooses the Host and the Shipman as the bitterest 
opponents of heretical doctrine. 

We do not know the immediate source of the Ship- 
man s Tale. A similar story is found in the iJccam- 
eron. Day 8, Nov. 1 ; but Chaucer's setting 
of the tale near Paris indicates that he 
derived it from a French fabliau now lost. Save for 
its general tone of loose morality, there is no special 
appropriateness in assigning the tale to the Shiimian ; 

1 The term 'loller' or ' lollard,' derisively applied to the followers 
of Wiclif, probably means only a foolish talker ; but it was popularly 
associated with the Latin lullium, tares, with reference to the parable 
of the tares sown among the wheat. 



THE SHIPMAN'S TALE 189 

aiul the use of the first person pronoun plural in the 
passage beginning — 

lie moot us clothe, and he moot iix arraye, 

shows that it was originally intended for one of the 
female members of the company, who can have been 
no otlier than the Wife of Bath. Apj)arently Chaucer 
first wrote the tale for her, and then liglitingon another 
story which should more fully reveal his conception of 
her character, utilized the rejected tale for the Ship- 
man, forgetting to eliminate the inconsistent passage 
referred to above. 

Though much more delicate than the tales of the 
Miller and the Reeve, the tale of the Shipman is essen- 
tially more immoral. Hende Nicholas re- r^j^^ gj^. 
ceives a rijjhteons retribution for his deeds: man's 

. Tale. 

and the two Cambridge students have at 
least a certain provocation for theirs. The Monk, Dan 
John, is false not only to his professions as a man of 
God, but violates also the sacred laws of hospitality 
and of common gratitude. He cultivates the friend- 
ship of the worthy merchant merely that he may live 
on him, and, not content with that, deliberately plays 
him false with his wife. With equal nonchalance he 
leaves the woman he has corrupted to extricate herself 
as best she can from an exceedingly embarrassing situ- 
ation. The story ends with the laugh all on his side. 
The moral of the tale seems to be, as Mr. Snell has 
put it, ' that adultery is a very amusing and profitable 
game, provided that it is not found out.' The intrigue 
is, of course, a clever one, the actors are clearly char- 
acterized, and the narrative is well conducted ; but 
neither the intrigue, nor the art of the tale, is brilliant 
enough to blind us, even partially, to the disagreeable 
picture of treachery and lust. The chief artistic merit 



190 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

of the piece consists in the realistic picture it gives of 
a well-to-do bourgeois household, and of the business 
methods of a fourteenbli-century merchant, such as 
Chaucer must have seen often at the Loudon Custom 
House. 

THE prioress's TALE 

Very different is the tale of the gentle Prioress 
which follows. With all courtesy, the usually rough- 
spoken Host turns to Madame Eglantine : — 

* My lady Prioresse, by your leve, 
So that I wiste I sholde vow nat greve, 
I wolde demen that ye telleii sholde 
A tale next, if so were that ye wolde. 
Now wol ye vouchesauf, my lady dere ? ' 

And the courteous request meets with courteous assent. 
As set forth in the General Prologue, Madame Eg- 
lantine's character is compounded of many affectations. 
Scrupulous in her dress and table manners, priding 
herself on her command of an antiquated Norman 
French which she supposes is still the French of fash- 
ionable society, in all things taking pains to ' countre- 
fete chere of court,' she stands as the typical superior of 
a young ladies' school. Next to this quality of utter 
*seemlines3 ' comes the good lady's tenderness of heart : 

She wolde wepe, if that she sawe a moiis 
Caught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde. 

As seen superficially at the Tabard Inn, she is dis- 
stinctly likeable, but also a little ridiculous. The true 
measure of her character is to be found in the fullfr 
revelation of her tale. She might have been expected 
to tell a courtly tale, which should establish her repu- 
tation as an accomplished woman of the world ; but her 
affectations are only on the surface. Her legend of the 
' litel clergeon ' breathes the spirit of earnest, heart- 



THE PRIORESS'S TALE 191 

felt religion, and shows that the tenderness of her 
heart is not confined to the sufferings of a wounded 
mouse or a favorite lap-dog, but makes her keenly- 
susceptible to the truest and deepest pathos. Instead 
of the calm assurance and self-confidence of a lady 
superior, we find in her invocation of the Blessed Vir- 
gin a sincere Christian humility : — 

* My conning is so wayk, o blisful quene, 
For to declare thy grete worthinesse, 
That I ne may the weighte nat siistene, 
But as a child of twelf inonthe old or lesse, 
That can unnethes any word expresse, 
Right so fare I, and therfor I yovv preye, 
Gydeth my song that I shal of yow seye.' 

To understand the spirit which gave rise to stories 
such as that told by the Prioress, we must think our- 
selves back into a time when the antipathy 

... /--ii • • p 1 " ■ "• — r Sources. 

which some Christians now leel against the 
JewisE'race on purely social grounds had all the force 
of a religious passion. ' His blood be on us and on 
our children,' shouted the multitude of Jerusalem ; and 
tiie multitude of mediaeval Europe felt it a sacred duty 
that the blood-guiltiness should be brought home to 
the self-cursed race. The pages of European history 
are stained with many stories of senseless persecution, 
which, though due doubtless in part to the fact that 
the Jews were rich while the Christians among whom 
they lived were poor, were possible only because of 
this mistaken religious zeal. 

It is entirely possible that, stung into fury by these 
persecutions, the Jews may have sought revenge by the 
treacherous murder of Cliristian children. So wide- 
spread a belief in such a murderous practice could 
hardly have sprung up wjthout s ()me_sort_Ql_fgunda- 
tion. But be tliat as it may, all Europe firmly believed 



192 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

that, inspired by fierce hatred of Christ, the Jews, in 
Passion Week particularly, were in the liabit of reepr 
acting the scenes of the crucifixion, taking as their 
victmi any Christian child whom they were able to 
decoy into their houses. If the child was not crucified, 
he was murdered outright, and his blood was used in 
some gruesome religious ceremony. 

The earliest story of a Christian child murdered by 
Jews comes from the first quarter of the fifth century, 
and is narrated in Greek by the Church historian Soc- 
rates. As translated by Dr. James of Cambridge,' the 
story runs as follows : ' Now a little after this the Jews 
paid the penalty for further lawless acts against the 
Christians. At Inmestar, a place so-called, which lies 
between Chalcis and Antioch in Syria, the Jews were 
in the habit of celebrating certain sports among them- 
selves : and, whereas they frequently did many foolish 
actions in the course of their sports, they were put 
beyond themselves (on this occasion) by drunkenness, 
and began deriding Christians and even Christ him- 
self in their games. They derided the Cross and those 
who hoped in the Crucified, and they hit upon this plan. 
They took a Christian child and bound him to a cross 
and hung him up ; and to begin with they mocked and 
derided him for some time; but after a short space they 
lost control of themselves, and so ill-treated the child 
that they killed him. Hereupon ensued a bitter conflict 
between them and the Christians.' 

There seems to have been no recurrence of this crime, 
either in fact or in fiction, until the year 1144, when 
occurred the famous ' martyrdom ' of St. William of 

^ The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich, by Thomas of 
Monnioiith, edited by Jessopp and James, Cambridge, 1896, p. Ixiii. 
To the Introduction of this volume I am indebted for mucli valuable 
information about the legend. 



THE PRIORESS'S TALE 193 

Norwich. According to the life of St. William, written 
a few years later by Thomas of Monmouth, a monk of 
Norwich Priory, AVilliam, who had from the first been 
distinguished for his sanctity, was at the age of twelve 
decoyed on Tuesday of Holy Wuek into a Jew's house 
in Norwich. Here on the following day he was cru- 
cified and pierced in the left side, a crown of thorns 
upon his forehead. On Good Friday his body was put 
in a sack and carried by the murderers to Thoi-pe 
"Wood, where it was hanged to a tree. It was finally 
removed to the Monks' Cemetery in Norwich, where 
many miracles were wrought by its agency. That a boy 
named William was actually murdered in Norwich in 
1144, and that his murder was attinbuted to the Jews, 
we can assert without question ; whether or not any 
Jews were really concerned in the ci-ime is open to 
serious doubt. The fame of his martyrdom, however, 
spread rapidly ; and we begin to hear of similar boy- 
martyrs in England and on the continent. Of these 
the most famoxis is St. Hugh of Lincoln, alluded to by 
the Prioress at line 1874 of her tale, who, according 
to the chronicle of Matthew Paris, was murdered by 
Jews in the year 1255.' The tomb of St. Hugh is still 
pointed out to the curious visitor at Lincoln. 

The number of such supposed martyrdoms is very 
large. Adrian Kembter, in a book published at Inns- 
bruck in 1745, enumerates fifty-two, the last of which 
occurred in 1650. Even to-day a belief in such Jewish 
atrocities has survived in Eastern Europe. The New 
York Sun for April 4, 1904, published the following 
statement under date of Vienna, April 3 : ' Die Zeit 
publishes an extraordinary anti-»Iewish proclamation 
issued by the Orthodox Association of Odessa, urging 

1 Three ballads on the murder of Hncrh of Lincoln are found in Pro- 
fessor Child's English and Scottish Ballads. 



194 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

right-minded Russians to follow the glorious example 
of their brethren who settled their accounts with the 
Jews at Kishineff last Easter. It declares that the vic- 
tory is incomplete, for Satan has incarnated himself in 
the Jews. . . . The proclamation adds : " The Russians 
must aid the government to exterminate the Jews, who 
drink the blood of Russian children." ' ^ 

A legend so widely current as this could not fail to 
find expression in literature, especially when it lent 
itself so readily to human pathos and religious enthu- 
siasm. The Chaucer Society's volume of Orir/mals 
and Analogues contains three stories similar to that 
of the Prioress : the legend of Alphonsus of Lincoln, 
from a volume entitled Fortalitium Fidei, written in 
Latin prose, and dating from the second half of the 
fifteenth century; a French poem of 756 lines from a 
collection of Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary by 
Gautier de Coincy (1177-1236), telling the legend of 
an English boy murdered by a Jew for singing Gmide 
Mana ; and an English poem of 152 lines of octosyl- 
labic couplets from the Miracles of Oure Lady, which 
tells of a Paris beggar-boy killed by a Jew for singing 
Alma liedemptoris Jlater.^ 

If we compare these three versions with the Prior- 
esses Tale, we find that they exhibit several traits in 
common. In each instance the story is told to the 
greater glory of tlie Virgin Mary ; it is the devotion 
of the boy-martyr to her, shown by the singing of a 
hymn in her honor, which leads to the murderous act 
of the Jew; it is by her agency that the miracle is 
wrought which betrays the murder. In each the child's 

^ My attention was called to this modern analogue by my friend and 
former pupil, Mr. S. B. Hemint;\vay, of New TTavun. 

^ The Miracles of Oure Lody have been published by Dr. Karl Horst* 
mann, in Ilerrig's Archiv/'ur Neuere Sprachen, 5G. 223-236. 



THE PRIORESS'S TALE 195 

mother goes to seek him, and is advised of his where- 
abouts by the miraculously continued singing of the 
hymn. The first and third versions agree with Chau- 
cer in specifying the Alma lledeviptoris Mater as the 
hymn which excited the wrath of the Jew ; the first 
and second agree in stating that the boy learned the 
hymn at school ; the first and third agree that the mur- 
dered body was thrown into a ' wardrobe ; ' the second 
version differs from all the rest in that the murdered 
boy is restored to life. Of the three versions the first 
is, on the whole, nearest to Chaucer's ; but its date 
precludes the idea that it was Chaucer's source. Chau- 
cer must have used some version of the story which has 
not been preserved to us. For purposes of comparison, 
however, a synopsis of the tale may be interesting. 

In the city of Lincoln dwelt a poor widow, who had 
a son ten years old named Alphousus, whom she sent 
to school. After he had learned to read, he was set to 
study the rudiments of grammar and music. Hearing 
often that splendid antiphon. Alma Medemptoris, sung 
in church, he conceived such great devotion toward the 
Blessed Virgin, and so deeply impressed the antiphon 
upon his memory, that wherever he went, day or night, 
he used to sing it most sweetly with a loud voice. Now 
when he went to his mother's house, or back again to 
school, his way led through the Jewry. One of the Jews 
asked a Christian doctor what was the meaning of that 
song that sounded so sweet. On learning that it was 
a hymn sung to the praise and honor of the Blessed 
Virgin Mary, he began to plot with his fellows how 
they might slay the child who sang it. Waiting for a 
favorable opportunity, they seized on the boy as he 
was going through tlieir quarter, singing the aforesaid 
antiphon with a loud voice. Having cut out his tongue, 
with which he praised the Blessed Virgin, and torn out 



196 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

his heart, with which he pondered his song, they threw 
his body into their privy. But the Blessed Virgin, who 
is mother of mercy and pity, came to his aid, and placed 
a precious stone in his mouth to take the place of his 
tongue ; and straightway he began to sing, as before, 
the aforesaid hymn, even better and louder than at 
first, nor did he cease day or night from his singing; 
and in this manner he continued for four days. 

Now his mother, when she saw that he did not come 
home as usual, sought for him throughout the city ; and 
finally, at the end of the four days, she went through 
the Jews' quarter, where her son had been slain, and, 
behold, the voice of her son, singing most sweetly that 
hymn of the Virgin which she had often heard from 
him, sounded in her ears. On hearing it, she shouted 
loudly ; and her shouts gathered a crowd of people, 
who, with the judge of the city, broke into the house 
and took the body away; but never did he cease to 
sing that sweet song, even though he was dead. The 
body was placed on a couch and borne to the cathedral 
church of that town, where the bishop celebrated Mass, 
and bade the congregation pray earnestly that the se- 
cret might be revealed. When the sermon was finished, 
the little boy rose, and stood upon his couch, and took 
a precious stone from his mouth, and told all the people 
what had happened to him, and how the Virgin had 
come to him, and placed the stone in his mouth, that he 
should not cease, though dead, from her praise. Having 
finished, he gave the precious stone to the bishop, that 
it might be placed with the other relics on the altar, 
signed himself with the sign of the holy cross, and 
committed his spirit into the hands of the Saviour. 

The version of the story which Chaucer used prob- 
ably differed in some details from the foregoing. Chau- 
cer's schoolboy lived in a great city of Asia, instead of 



THE PRIORESS'S TALE 197 

in merry Lincoln ; but the more significant of the cli- 
ver^ences may well be laid to Chaucer's artistic genius. 
The art of the Prlo7'ess's Tale is shown chiefly in the 
increased emphasis laid on the human, as opposed to 
the supernatural aspects of the story. The chaucer's 
main purpose of the other versions is to show Version, 
tlie miraculous power of the Blessed Virgin and the 
black malignancy of the cursed Jews, the murdered 
boy himself being little more than a lay-figure, a ne- 
cessary part of the machinery of the tale. Chaucer 
has slighted neither the glories of the Virgin nor the 
wickedness of the Jews ; but he has subordinated both 
to the deep and tender pathos which centres in his 
' litel clergeon, seven yeer of age,' his ' martir, souded 
to virginitee.' Eight full stanzas are devoted to the 
setting forth of his sweetly simple child-nature, before 
the tragic murder is even hinted at. We see the little 
clerk on his daily walk to and from his school, bending 
the knee, and saying his Ave Mary, wherever he saw 
an imaije of the Mother of Christ. His learning: of the 
hymn which is to prove his destruction is shown in 
detail. As he sits in school conning his ' litel book,' he 
liears the Alma JRedemptorls sung by older children 
in another room, — 

And, as he dorste, he droiigh him ner and ner, 
And herkned ay the wordes and the note, 
Til he the firste vers coude al by rote. 

Even the older schoolfellow who teaches him the rest of 
the song, and tells him what it means, is clearly, though 
briefly, characterized : — 

His felaw, which that elder was than he, 

Answerde him thus : 'this song-, I have herd seye, 

Was makcd of our blisful lady free, 

Ilir to salue, and eek hir for to preye 

To been our help and socour when we deye. 



198 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

I can no more expounde in this matere ; 
I lerne song, I can but snial grammere.' 

He is a likeable boy; but he lacks the divine spark of 
his younger comrade. To hiwi the anthem is but part 
of his school task. Not so the ' litel clergeon : ' — 

' And is this song maked in reverence 
Of Cristes nioder ? ' seyde this innocent ; 

* Now certes, I wol do my diligence 
To conne it al, er Cristeuiasse is went ; 
Though that I for my prymer shal he shent, 
And shal be beten thryes in an lioure, 
I wol it conne, our lady for to lionoure.' 

If we wish to realize Chaucer's power in depicting 
these children, we have only to compare them with 
the utterly impossible children who occasionally appear 
in the plays of Shakespeare. If we wish to appreciate 
the difference between true pathos and mere sentiment 
in the portrayal of childhood, we may compare the 
Prioress's Tale with Tennyson's In the Children's 
Hospital. 

After the murder is done, our attention is called for 
a while to the sorrowing mother, as she seeks her child, 
and to the tender love of the Virgin Mother who suc- 
cors him in his death ; but our ears ring through it all 
with the sweet, clear voice of the martyred boy as he 
sings : — 

Alma Redemptoris Mater, qufe pervia cceli 
Porta manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti, 
Surgere qui curat, populo : tu quse genuisti, 
Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem, 
Virgo prius ac posterius, Gabrielis ab ore 
Sumens illud Ave, peccatorum miserere.' 

■* This anthem is sunp: at Compline from the Saturday evening' be-, 
fore the first Sund;iy in Advent imtil the feast of the Purification 
{Brfiviaritim Romanum, Mechliniae, 1866, Pars Hiemalis, p. 147). There 
is another Advent antiphon beginning with the same line (»ee Skeat's 



SIR THOPAS 199 

Sm THOPAS AND THE TALE OP MELIBEUS 
The Prioress's tale of the ' Htel clergeon ' has left 
the company, as well it might, in sober mood. It is the 
sort of story that one wants to ponder awhile in rever- 
ent silence. Even the rougher members of the party- 
are deeply touched ; and the Host himself, when, feel- 
ing his obligation to keep the journey a merry one, he 
begins to jest and jape again, pays subtle tribute to 
the potency of the spell by speaking in the seven-line 
stanza of the Prioress's Tale. 

The Host begins to look about for the teller of the 
next tale. It must be a tale of mirth to restore the 
light-heartedness of the company ; but not a ' niery ' 
tale of the coarser sort — that would be too violent a 
shifting of tone. His glance lights on Chaucer, who is 
riding silently, his eyes upon the ground, ' in thought- 
ful or in pensive mood,' attentively listening to all 
that is said, but taking no part in the general conver- 
sation. He is just the man to tell 'som deyntee thing.' 
The poet is apparently traveling incognito ; ' the Host, 
at least, has no inkling as to the identity of the guest 
whom he is entertaining unawares. He begins by 
rallying him good-naturedly, though unceremoniously, 
on his retiring manners, and on the generous propor- 
tions of his figure : — 

* He in the waast is shape as wel as I.* 

There is something ' elvish ' about his countenance, 
says the Host, as though he were a visitant from the 
land of faery, in the world, but not of it. Precisely the 

Oxford Chaucer, 5. 177) ; but that the one given above is the one Chau- 
cer had in mind is rendered probable by the direct translation from it 
given in the third of the three versions of the legend mentioned above. 
^ One wonders whether the Man of Law in his reference to Chaucer 
was equally ignorant of the poet's presence. 



200 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

word, we agree, to describe the peculiar elusiveness of 
Chaucer's playful-serious nature. 

If the Host is ignorant of Chaucer's identity, we are 
not ; and when Geoffrey agrees to tell a story, we pre- 
pare ourselves for a tale which shall be the masterpiece 
of^the whole collection. But that is not Chaucer's way. 
[it is much more modest, and vastly more humorous, 
that he should represent himself as telling a tale which 
should outwear the patience of his hearers before it 
was half told. Dramatically, too, his choice is entirely 
probable. Suppose a great master of the violin trav- 
eling incognito should be jocosely invited to ' favor the 
company with a tune;' what more likely, granting 
him a keen sense of humor, than that he should tune 
his fiddle and strike up Yankee Doodle or an Irish jig? 
His musical reputation is secure. And so with Chau- 
cer; does not the reader know that all the tales are 
his ? A keen observer would doubtless detect a master's 
touch even in the rendition of Yankee Doodle, and 
the veriest tyro in literature must recognize that the 
burlesque of Sir Thopas is executed with matchless 
poetical skill. 

To appreciate fully the delicacy and point of this 
literary satire, one should know some of the weary 
Th Rm romances which so vastly delighted our fore- 
ofsir fathers of Ions: agfo.^ From morn to noon, 

Thopas. p .1 1 r 

from noon to dewy eve, one may read or 
Sir Degrevant and Sir Eglamour and Sir Guy of 
Warwick, of Lybeaus Disconus and of the mythical 
Alexander. These romances often have the charm of 
naive simplicity, but they are terribly long-winded, full 

^ A readily accessible example of the species, though written long 
after Chaucer's death, is the Squtjr of Lowe Degre, recently edited for 
the Athenfeum Press iSeries by Professor W. E. Mead. It is by no 
means wholly devoid of interest, and is, as its editor remarks, ' merci- 
fully brief.' The language will offer no difficulty to a reader of Chaucer. 



SIR THOPAS 201 

of digression and minute description, and, of course, 
hijilily improbable. 

With such works before him, Chaucer might very 
easily have given us a howling farce, after the manner 
of Sliakespeare's ' Pyranuis and Thisbe ' or Butler's 
Jliidihras, ; but this would not have been quite courte- 
ous to those of his contemporaries who were still writ- 
ing such romances, and to the still larger number who 
still were glad to read them. Neither would it have 
been so effective; one may easily o'erleaj) himself in 
the matter of satire, and make his caricature so gross 
that it ceases to convince. Chaucer has performed the 
more delicate and much more difficult task of writing 
an imitation, so true to the original that one might 
easily read it through in a collection of romances with- 
out suspecting its good faith, while so subtly height- 
ening the original traits of diffuseness and essen- 
tial nonsense, that its absurdity becomes immediately 
patent to one who will look a second time. All the 
real charm of naive simplicity Chaucer has reproduced 
intact. We are really disappointed when the tale is 
rudely stopped in the middle of a line. Nearly a hun- 
dred lines pass musically by before anything happens 
at all. At last the much belauded hero finds himself 
face to face with a ' greet geaunt,' and we look to see 
lively action. But no; Sir Thopas politely promises 
to meet the giant to-morrow, and makes his escape. 

And al it was thiirp:li godrles gras 
And thurgh his fair beringe. 

We must hear to the minutest detail how he was armed, 
and how he appeared as he rode forth ; and the tale is 
interrupted in its two hundred and seventh line, before 
there is any remote prospect of battle. The broad drift 
of the absurdity is obvious enough ; it is in little touches 
of the deepest bathos, and in the continually recurring 



202 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

tone of petit-hourgeoisie, that the subtler humor re- 
sides. We are to be impressed with the hero's surpass- 
ing comeliness of feature. His face is white as a lily ? 
No, as payiidemaijn, the choicest quality of wheat 
bread. 'His rode is lyk scarlet in grayn,' i. e. it will 
not come out in the wash. And to cap the stanza: — 

And I yow telle in good certayn, 
He hadde a semely nose. 

The forest through which Childe Thopas rides is in- 
fested with many wild beasts. We look to hear of the 
lion and the pard ; but the next verse explains : — 

Ye, bothe bukke and hare ! 
Or, again, we are to be told how the hero's very person 
inspires fear : — 

For in that contree was ther noon 
That to him dorste ryde or goon, 
Neither wyf ne childe. 

As examples of the bourgeois tone, as Professor Koel- 
bing calls it,^ one may notice that in the catalogue of 
' herbes grete and smale ' which spring in the forest is 
mentioned 

Notemuge to putte in ale, 

Wliether it be moyste or stale, 

Or for to leye in cofre. 

So, too, when Sir Thopas wished to swear a mighty oath, 

He swoor on ale and breed, 

How that * the geaunt shal be deed, 

Bityde what bityde ! ' 

But to the Host, that sturdy dispenser of ale and wine, 
the crowning absurdity, beyond which he cannot suffer 
the tale to proceed a stanza, is the statement : — 

Himself drank water of the wel, 
As did the knight Sir Percivel. 

Let him disdain the use of a roof, if he please, and 

1 ' Zu Chaucer's Sir Thopas,' Englische Studien, 11. 495-511. 



THE MONK'S TALE 203 

*Hggen in his hode ; ' but of deliberate choice to drink 
' water of the wel ' — 

* No more of this, for goddes dignitee,* 
Quod oure hoste, * for thou niakest nie 
So wery of thy verraj"^ lewednesse 
That, also wisly god my soule blesse, 
Myii eres aken of thy drasty speche.' 

Under this rude interruption Chaucer shows an 
angelic sweetness of temper. It is the best rime he 
knows ; but if it is not acceptable to the company, he 
will tell a little thing in prose. From the standpoint 
of the modern readci% at least, Chaucer more than 
revenges himself by inflicting his long ' moral tale ver- 
tuous ' of Melibeus. 

The Tale of Melibeus is a translation of a French 
work called Le livre de Melihee et de dame Prudence^ 
which is in its tui-n based on the Liber Con- The Tale of 
solationis et ConsUll of Albertano of Bres- Melibeus. 
cia, who died soon after the middle of tlie thirteenth 
century. Dame Prudence gives some excellent advice 
to her impulsive husband, Melibeus, and, to adopt 
the words of Tyrwhitt, the tale ' was probably much 
esteemed in its time ; but in this age of levity, I doubt 
some readers will be apt to regret that he did not rather 
give us the remainder of Sire Thopas.' Here is a good 
opportunity to take Chaucer at his word, when he says 
of another tale : — 

And therfore, whoso list it nat yhere, 
Turne over the leef, and chese another tale. 

THE monk's tale 

The modern reader has doubtless been bored, by the 

moralizing tale of Melibeus, if indeed he has not 

skipped it outright. Not so the honest Host. He has 

your true middle-class Englishman's love for moraliz- 



204 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

ing, if not for morality. Moreover, the tale has for liim 
a special and personal interest: — 

Our hoste seyde, ' as I am faitlif iil man, 

And by the precious corpus Madrian, 

I hadde lever tlian a barel ale 

That goode lief my wyf hadde herd this tale ! ' 

She is no Dame Prudence to restrain her husband's 
wrath. On the contrary, she is a sort of bourgeois Lady 
Macbeth, urging on her husband to acts of violence ; 
while in her ability to vilify the poor man, and force 
him to do her will, she is own sister to the Wife of 
Bath. She will make him slay one of the neighbors, 
and bring him to a murderer's death, one of these days, 
the Host predicts : — 

• For I am perilous with knyf in honde, 
Al be it that I dar nat hir withstonde.' 

After this bit of realism, which serves well as a buffer 
between the rather ponderous * tales ' which precede 
and follow, the Ilost turns to my lord the Monk, and 
begins to rally him on his general air of well-fed 
prosperity and physical fitness. From such a sleek, 
comfortable-looking gentleman, the Host confidently 
expects a ' mery ' tale. But alas ! for mine Host's dis- 
appointed hopes! The Monk is not, like the reckless 
Pardoner, a man who can suffer his dignity to lie fallow 
for a season. However far he may stray from the 
' reule of Seint Maure or of Seint Beneit,' the dignity 
of his person and his rank allow no unseemliness or 
levity of speech. In his own cell, surrounded by his 
fellow monks, with a plump swan and a good bottle 
before him, his fat sides may have shaken often enough 
with laughter at a merry jest ; but no such relaxation 
is convenient in the promiscuous company of the Can- 
terbury Road. With unruffled patience he hears the 
Host through to the end, suffering his free familiarity 



THE INIONK'S TALE 205 

and scarcely veiled innuendo to pass unanswered and 
unnoticed. 

' I wol (loon al my diligence. 
As fer as sounetli into iionestee, 
To telle yow a tale, or two, or three.' 

The tales he offers are a life of Edward the Confessor, 
or a series of ' tragedies,' of which he has a hundred at 
home in his cell. Condescendingly he explains to the 
unlearned that — 

Tragedie is to seyn a certeyn storie, 
As olde bokes luaken us meniorie, 
Of liini that stood in greet prosperitee 
And is y fallen out of iieigh degree 
Into niiserie, and eudeth wrecchedly. 

With true scholarly spirit he apologizes for the lack of 
chronological order in what is to follow ; with a self- 
depreciation worthy of Matthew Arnold he bogs to be 
excused for his ignorance ; and then, without waiting 
to see whether the choice is going to be acceptable, 
launches into his weary string of ' tragedies.' 

One day, as the sprightly author of the Decameron 
was sitting in his study, he was visited by a strange 
monk, who told him of a death-bed vision, in g^^^j.^^^ 
which a fellow monk had seen heaven and 
hell opened before him, and had clearly distinguished 
Giovanni Boccaccio among those dwelling in the less de- 
sirable of these mansions. The impressionable, imagi- 
native nature of Boccaccio was so deeply moved by this 
gruesome prophecy that he was at first determined to 
burn his books, and devote himself to a life of religion ; 
but under the saner counsels of his friend Petrarch, 
he decided instead to abandon his more frivolous cojn- 
positions, and give himself to the study of classical 
philology. Among the works which followed on this so- 
called conversion is one entitled De Casihus Virorum 



206 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER ' 

et Feyninanim lUustniim^ a sort of biographical diction- 
ary, dealing with the lives of those who had stood in 
gi'oat prosperity and had fallen from their high degree 
into misery, and had come to a wretched end. Not a 
very pleasant subject for a book, we are tempted to say; 
but the subject was one which appealed to an age 
intensely interested in biography, and eagerly craving 
the excitement of tragic downfalls. During the period 
when Chaucer was strongly under the influence of Boc- 
caccio and other Italian models, — the exact year we 
cannot determine, — he seems to have planned a similar 
work in his own English, which was to have consisted 
of a hundred ' tragedies,' beginning with Lucifer and 
Adam and extending down to his own day — such a 
work as his disciple Lydgate accomplished in his Fall 
of Princes^ a generation later. Fortunately, we tliink, 
this work was one of the many which Chaucer planned 
and started, but never brought to completion. He 
either tired of it, or perhaps came soon to recognize 
that the work was not worth doing. That he was con- 
scious of its literary badness at the time he wrote the 
Canterh\iry Tales is shown by the criticisms showered 
upon it by such diverse characters as the Knight and 
the Host. He had, however, written some dozen or 
thirteen of the hundred tragedies, taking up his subjects 
not chronologically, but according to his whim and 
fancy ; and when he came to construct the Canterhury 
Tales^ he saw a chance to utilize these discarded frag- 
ments, dramatically so appropi'iate to the ponderous dig- 
nity of the Monk, while at the same time indicating his 
maturer critical judgment as to their literary worth. 
He added four new paragraphs dealing with contem- 
porary worthies,^ purposely upset the chronological 

^ See Skeat's arg'ument to prove that the trag'edies of Pedro of Spain, 
Pedro of Cyprus, Barnabo, and Ugolino are of later date, in the Oxford 



THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE 207 

order to conceal the incompleteness of the series and 

to give greater naturalness to the Monk's narration, I 

and foisted the whole off upon the substantial shoul- ' 

ders of the defenseless Monk. Here is a thrifty way / 

of disposing of one's literary bastards ! In composing ' 

the several sections, Chaucer had recourse not only to 

his great model, Boccaccio, but to the Vulgate Bible, 

to Ovid, Boethius, Guido, and others, the tale of ITgo- 

lino being taken bodily from the thirty-third canto of 

Dante's Inferno. 

A discussion of the literary merit of these ' tragedies ' 

must resemble the famous chapter on the snakes of 

Ireland. With few exceptions, they have no ^^ „ 

i ^ J The Seven- 

literary merit. Apart from the unspeakable teen Tra- 

monotony of the series, the dry epitomizing ^^ ^^^' 
character of the individual narrations and the inevit- 
ably recurring moral nuike them intolerable. The one 
shining exception to this swee])ing condemnation is the 
tale of Ugolino, a splendid bit of condensed narrative, 
rich in pathos and true tragic power ; but the excel- 
lence of this piece is due to the success with which the 
author has reproduced the matchless art of Dante. 

Before leaving the tale, one may pause a minute 
to notice the eight-line stanza in which it is written, 
a measui-e which Chaucer had used in his very early 
A. B. C. This stanza, when supplemented by an ad- 
ditional alexandrine, gives us the Spenserian stanza of 
the Faerie Qucene. 



(^ 



THE NUN S PRIEST S TALE 

Not only the Knight who interrupts courteously 
and the Host who seconds his objection more roughly, 

Chaucer, vol. iii. pp. 428-429. The account of Barnabo deals with events 
which happened in 1385, which is the latest historical allusion con- 
tained in the Canterbury Tales. 



208 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

but the whole company must have been bored to death 
by the weary string of dismal ' tragedies ' which 
the Monk has thought fit to narrate on this sunny 
eighteenth of April. The Knight objects that most 
people care for but ' litel hevinesse ; ' it is pleasanter 
to hear of men who from poor estate have attained to 
great and lastiug prosperity. The Host assures the 
reverend gentleman that such talk as his is not worth 
a butterfly : — 

* For sikerly, nere clinking of yonr belles, 
That on your br^'del liange on every sytle, 
By heven king, that for us alle dyde, 
I sbolde er this ban fallen doun for slepe, 
Although the slough had never been so depe.' 

We poor readers, who can hear this meri-y clinking 
of the bridle bells but faiutly with the inner ear of 
imagination, are surely to be forgiven if we ' fallen 
doun for slepe ' befoi-e the ' tragedies ' are half recounted. 
However, we have, by way of compensation, a relief 
which was not possible to the pilgrims — the blessed 
relief of skipping ; boldly turn three pages at once, and 
we reach one of the merriest tales that ever graced 
our English tongue. 

Neither in the General Prologue nor in the links 
which fit the tale into its framework has Chaucer taken 
any pains to characterize the 'geutil Freest' who tells 
this tale. So we may dismiss him without ceremony, 
and imagine ourselves face to face with Chaucer ; his 
is the all-pervading geniality and sly elvish humor of 
this sparkling tale, which seems part and parcel of 
the April sunshine. There is no piece of all Chaucer's 
writings that one would sooner choose to set before 
the uninitiated and say, 'Here is the Chaucer whom 
we love.' Dull must he be of soul who fails to become 
a convert. Here is the vivid delineation of scene, the 



THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE 209 

subtle characterization, the infinite ease and grace of 
language and verse, the delicate play of humor, above 
all the fresh-hearted gayety and eminent sanity to 
which we gladly turn when wearied out with the more 
modern poets and story-tellers who insistently brood 
over the mystery of this unintelligible world, as the pil- 
grims turned from the weary ' tragedies ' of the Monk. 
Let no one suppose that our present-day fad for ani- 
mal stories, w-herein only too often an entirely respec- 
table dumb beast is endowed with a degree 
of wishy-washy sentimentalism which even a 
moderately intelligent human being would be ashamed 
of, is at all a modern discovery. Far in the ' dark 
backward and ab3'sm of time,' long centuries before the 
authors of the Jungle Books or the Brer Fox stories 
•were dreamed of, our remote ancestors delighted in 
stories of beasts and birds who spoke and acted more 
or less like men and women, though keeping in the 
main the frolic wantonness and shrewd cunning of the 
beast. In those old days, I suppose, people were inter- 
jested in animals as the daily companions of the field, 
and even of the hearth ; to-day, in the crowded life of 
our cities, we are interested in beasts because we see 
so little of them. An honest, well-meaning clergyman 
spends a summer vacation in the country, and armed 
with oi)era-glass, note-book, and abundant sentiment, 
'discovers ' in the life of the forest a far-seeing wisdom, 
a pathos, a tragedy, with which he fills his books — or 
jlecture-halls — for a year to come. From this so-called 
' nature study ' the step to the sentimental animal story 
is inevitable. I do not mean that all our animal stories 
are so written ; I could name at least three writers of 
such tales who escape, or nearly escape, the charge 
of false sentimentality ; it is the great army of their 
imitators — but enough of this. 



210 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Any one who will venture into the labyrinthine dis- 
cussions of the folklorists will find abundant proof 
that stories not unlike the central episode of the cock 
and fox in Chaucer's tale have been told since the ear- 
liest times in all countries of the world, from darkest 
Africa to farthest Inde. Tales of the fireside soon find 
their way into literature, when literature has once ap- 
peared, and so it was with these popular stories of the 
beast and bird. There have been in the past two main 
forms of the animal story : the ^Esopian fable, written 
by a moralizer who sought to give new effectiveness to a 
familiar bit of practical wisdom ; and the animal epic, 
the great repi-esentative of which is Reynard the Fox^ 
written, in its later form at least, by a satirist who 
wished to make fun of men and women under the con- 
venient guise of animals, at whom any one may laugh 
without fear of the censor. Of these two literary forms, 
that of the fable is the simpler and apparently the 
earlier. I need not characterize it ; every one knows 
his ^sop ; but it is interesting to see how the germ 
of Chaucer's tale appears in fable setting. Here is a 
translation of a Latin fable from the early Middle 
Ages, one of a collection which goes umler the name 
of Romulus : * — 

A Cock was walking up and down on the dunghill, 
when a Fox, seeing him, came near, and sitting down 
before him, broke in with these words: ' I never saw 
a fowl equal to yon in good looks, nor one who deserved 
more praise for the sweetness of his voice, save only 
your father. He, when he wanted to sing louder than 
usual, used to shut his eyes.' The Cock, who was a 
great lover of praise, did as the Fox suggested; he 

1 A verse translation of Marie de France's later but more artistic 
version of this fable is given by Professor Skeat in the Oxford Chaucer, 
vol. iii, p. 432. 



THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE 211 

shut his eyes, and began to sing with a loud voice. 
Immediately the Fox made a rusii at him, and turned 
his song into sadness by hurrying off to the woods 
with the singer. There happened to be shepherds in 
the field, and they began to chase the Fox with dogs 
and with great outcry. Then the Cock said to the Fox: 
'Tell tlu'in that I belong to you, and that this robbery 
is none of their business.' But when the Fox began to 
speak, the Cock dropped from his mouth, and by the 
aid of his wings soon found refuge in the top of a tree. 
Then the Fox said, ' Woe to him who speaks when 
he had better be silent.' And the Cock answered him 
from the tree, ' Woe to him who closes his eyes when 
he had better keep them open.' ^ 

French and German scholars have not yet finished 
fighting out the question to which nationality belongs 
the honor of originating the great animal epic of the 
Middle Ages, in which King Noble the lion. Bruin the 
bear, Grimbald the wolf, and the other animals hold 
their parliaments, and issue their decrees for the sup- 
pression of Reynard the fox, hero of this ' vulpiad,' who 
manages by his cleverness to outwit them all. The epic 
Df Keynard, as we have it in French and Germnn, and 
in the other tongues into which it was translated,^ is 
lot the work of any single author or single age. Like 
;he great cathedral buildings of England, the original 
'abric was freely added to and elaborated, any animal 
'able tending to get itself incorporated into this most 
30i)ular of poems. The story of the cock and the fox 
s found both in the French Roman de Renart and in 
;he German Reinecke Fucks ; but neither can have 
3een Chaucer's immediate source. Miss Kate Petersen, 

* I have followed the Latin text given by Miss Petersen : On the 
Purees of the Nonne T'restes Tale, Boston, 1808, pp. o-G. 
^ The first Euglish translation v;as made by Caxtou in 1481. 



212 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

who has examined the matter most carefully, concludes 
that Chaucer follows a version of the epic now lost to 
us, which was nearer to the German Reineclce than to 
the French Renart. By comparing Chaucer's version 
with these two, and making allowances for wliat may 
have been Chaucer's independent changes and addi- 
tions, she ingeniously reconstructs what must have been 
the main details of the version Chaucer used. This 
reconstructed version I shall reproduce here as a basis 
for comparison with the Nuns Priest's Tale} 

Beside a grove dwells a woman somewhat advanced 
in 3'ears, content with her property and with her pro- 
vision of grain and bacon. Within her yard, protected | 
by fence and hedge, she keeps a cock named Chante- ' 
cler and a number of hens, the best of which is named 
Pinte. One day at sunrise the fox, full of tricks, comes 
after Chantecler, but finds the fence too strong for 
him. At last, however, he pulls out a slat with his 
teeth, and crawls through the hedge into a heap of ■ 
cabbages, where he lies hidden. Pinte perceives his j 
presence, and calling out to Chantecler, who is asleep, 
she and her companions fly up on a beam. Chantecler 
comes up proudly, assures the hens that they are quite 
safe in this yard, and bids them return to their former; 
place. He then tells Pinte that he has had a bad dream 
in which he saw a reddish beast; is it any wonder that 
he is distressed and full of apprehension ? May heaven 
interpret the dream aright ! Here, perhaps, Pinte offers , 
some interpretation of the dream. Chantecler makes a 
reply in which he scoffs at dreams and makes humorous 

1 On the Sources of the Nonne Prestes Tale, Radcliffe Colleg-e Mono- 
graphs, No. 10, Boston, 1898. (In reproducing her liypotliotical ver- 
sion of the tale, I take some liberties with her languag-e.) Tliis study 
supersedes the discussion of sources given in Originals and Ana'ogues, 
pp. 1 1 1-128, though the French texts there given are useful for con- 
sultation. 



THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE 213 

remarks about women. Summoning up his courage, he 
dolus the dream. 

A little before noon, Cliantecler, unaware of the fox, 
flies nearer to the place where he is lurking, and on 
first seeing him, starts to iiee. But the fox begs Chan- 
tecler not to flee from a friend. Have not their families 
always been on friendly terms ? He praises the singing 
of Chanteeler's father, who used to sing with closed 
eyes. Why should not Chantecler try to imitate him ? 
Chantecler, too rash to perceive his folly, begins to beat 
his wings, and to sing with closed eyes. Upon this the 
fox seizes him by the throat and runs for the wood, 
while Pinte and the other hens lament their loss. 
The woman conies at the cry of the hens, and seeing 
the fox with Chantecler in his mouth cries, ' Harrow ! ' 
Every one pursues the fox. The dog is let loose. But 
Chantecler, in all his peril, prompts the fox to utter 
words of defiance to his pursuers. The fox opens his 
month, whereupon the cock escapes and flies into a 
tree. The cock assures the fox that the adventure shall 
not be repeated. The fox invokes shame upon the 
mouth that speaks out of season ; and Chantecler says, 
'Misfortune come upon him who shuts his eyes at 
the wrong time.' 

Though the point of this tale is the same as that of 
the Latin fable, we find the characters supplied with 
definite habitation and with names, while the story is 
elaborated by the introduction of a new episode, that 
jf the premonitor}'^ dream, and by some attempt at char- 
acterization. Chaucer, in utilizing this story, has made 
?ome changes in detail — the appearance of the fox is 
leferred until later in the story, when his part in the 
iction is to be important, distinctly improving the 
structure of the narrative ; he has greatly elaborated 
;he discussion of the dream, giving the skeptical atti- 



214 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

tude to Pertelote rather than Chanticleer ; and he has 
immensely heightened the description and characteriza- 
tion. In this way, what was originally a fireside story 
has become first a literary fable, then a developed nar- 
rative, and lastly a work of art. 

Chaucer's first care in retelling the old story was to 
give heightened color and realism to his background. 
Chancers ^^^ goes out into the country and paints a 
Version. peasant's cottage, such as must have been 
matter of common experience to the readers of his own 
day — the simple house of two rooms, with its sooty 
' hall ' serving as kitchen, living-room, hen-house, barn, 
and pig-sty, and the smaller ' bower ' where slept the 
widow and her daughters. We are given a view of the 
every-day peasant life, its hard work and meagre fare, 
its narrowing interests ; all this serving as a sharp con- 
trast to the lordly elegance and wide intellectual scope 
of Chanticleer, Still, it is not an unhappy life that 
Chaucer shows ; if the widow's board is but plainly 
furnished forth, she has as recompense a good diges- 
tion : — 

The goute lette hir nothing for to daunce, 

N' apoplexye shente nat hir heed. 

Best of all, she has that ' hertes suffisaunce ' which 
makes any life worth the living. Once again, later in 
the tale, the peasant life reasserts itself, when the 
widow, her daughters, the neighbors, and all the ani- 
mals of the farm in wild bedlam join in the hue and 
cry after the marauding fox. Both these pictures have 
all the vividness and realism of a Dutch genre paint- 
ing by Teniers or Gerard Don. 

A greater achievement than this is the creation of 
Chanticleer, a character which Is real and interesting, 
while remaining still a rooster, at the same time human 
and galline. To accomplish this, Chaucer has seized 



I THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE 215 

on the trait of character which is in a rooster most 
hiuiuin and in a man most galliue, the quality which 
the two species share in common — egotism, personal 
vanity, in a word, the strut. This is the quality which 
mankind agrees in attributing to the rooster as a type ; 
doubtless a rooster poet would attribute the same qual- 
ity to man. This is the trait of character which in the 
old fable leads to Chanticleer's downfall, when the fox 
cozens him with his pretty obvious flattery ; this is pre- 
eminently the quality of the domestic tyrant. So that 
it is without any sense of incongruity that we see the 
two types coalesce. 

Chanticleer, as he is first described to us, is only a 
superlative rooster, superlative in his crowing, superla- 
tive in his galline beauty : — • 

In al the land of crowing nas his peer. 

His vois was nierier than the mery orgon 

On niosse-dayes that in the chirche gon; 

Wei sikerer was his crowing in his logge, 

Than is a clokke, or an abbey orlogge. 

By nature knew he ech ascenciouu 

Of equinoxial in thilke toun; 

For whan degrees fiftene were ascended, 

Thanne crew he, that it inighte nat ben amended. 

From this it is an easy step to the singing of a song 
with words : — 

But such a joye was it to here hem singe, 
AVhan that the brighte sonne gan to springe, 
In swete accord, 'my lief is faren in londe.* 

This is followed up by an offhand statement : — 

For thilke tyme, as I have understonde, 
Bestes and briddes coude speke and singe. 

We accept this statement readily enough, as a neces- 
sary condition of animal stories. But if animals can 
talk, they can also have dreams. So bit by bit we are 
led into the plausible impossibility of the conjugal 



216 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

dispute, with all its display of erudition and dialec- 
tics. 

Dame Partlet becomes the typical housewife, kindly 
solicitous of her husband's welfare, even though she 
reproach him for his faint heart, — 

' Have ye no mannes herte, and hau a berd ? ' 

unwilling of course to accept his explanation of the 
dream, confident in the superiority of her own wisdom 
and in the efficacy of her own homely remedies. Was 
there ever a wife who did not love to prescribe from 
her medicine chest, or ever a husband who did not pro- 
test that medicine was quite unnecessary .? She is even 
ready to humor her husband's weakness for pedantry, 
quotes to him from one of his own authors, enters at 
length into a scientific explanation of dreams. She has 
not lived with the learned Chanticleer for nothing. As 
for the cock, he is your typical pedant and egotist. He 
is j^roud of his voice, of his learning, and of his immense 
superiority to his wives, whose company he enjoys be- 
cause of his superiority. With what evident self-satis- 
faction he quotes an uncomplimentary Latin proverb, 
which he translates wrongly, deliciously conscious that 
his playful fraud cannot be detected : — 

' For also siker as In principio, 
Mulier est hominis confusio; ' 
Madame, the sentence of this Latin is — 
Womman is mannes joye and al his blis.' 

His wife ventures to quote the authority of Cato 
that dreams are not to be regarded. Very well, if she 
wants authorities, she shall have them ; and he proceeds 
to buiy her volumes deep under his accumulated lore. 
She ought to know that a woman can't argue. But if 

^ The phrase ' In principio ' begins the hook of Genesis and the Gos- 
pel of St. John, in the Viilgate. ' It is as true as the Bible that woman 
is man's coufusion.' 



THE NUN'S PRIEST'S TALE 217 

Chanticleer is pedant and egotist, he is nevertheless a 
kindly soul, and we cannot but like him. 

However learnedly Chanticleer may discourse, how- 
ever human he may seem in his petty domestic tyran- 
nies, Chaucer never suffers us quite to forget that he 
is but a rooster and that Dame Partlet is but a hen. 
Were we to forget, the delicious humor of the situ- 
ation would be lost. This end Chaucer attains by con- 
stantly recurring to distinctly galline traits. After 
dis])laying her complete acquaintance with the materia 
medica, and assuring her husband that the herbs neces- 
sary 

' To purgen yow binetlie, and eek above ' 

are growing right there in the yard, she bids him 

* Pek'ke hem up right as they growe, and ete hem in,* 

So, too, when the long debate is ended, the rooster 
nature reasserts itself : — 

And with that word he fley doun fro the beem, 
For it was day, and eek his hennes alle ; 
And with a chnk he gan liem for to calle, 
For lie had founds a corn, lay in the yerd. 
Royal he was, he was nam ore aferd. 



He loketh as it were a grim leoun ; 
And on his toos he ronieth up and doun, 
Him deyned not to sette his foot to grounde. 

The beautiful bubble of pride and lordliness is 
pricked to nothing by the clever stratagem of Daun 
liussel the fox, and his ignominious rape of Chanti- 
cleer. That the airy fabric of the tale may not fall too 
suddenly to ground, Chaucer has recourse to the mock 
heroic. The marauding fox is apostrophized as 

O newe Scariot, newe Genilon! 

False dissimilour, O Greek Sinon, 

That broghtest Troye al outrely to sorwel 



218 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

There is learned discussion of free-will and God's fore- 
knowledge, as one might debate the reason of a prince's 
fall. The outcry of the widowed hens is comjDared 
to the lamentations of the Trojan ladies when Ilion 
was won, to the shrieks of ' Hasdrubales wyf,' to the 
wailing of the senators' wives when Nero burned impe- 
rial Rome. It takes all the wild hubbub of shouting 
rustics, barking dogs, and quacking geese to bring 
us back again to the realization that all this mighty 
action has been transacted in a poor widow's barnyard, 
and that its protagonists are but a cock and a fox. 

The rest of the story, which now follows the lines 
of the old fable, is disposed of quickly ; the moral is 
pointed, and thus is ended Chaucer's tale of Chanti- 
cleer. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE CANTERBURY TALES, GROUPS C AND D 

THE THYSICIAN'S TALE 

The I^hysiciatVs Tale begins a new group of tales, 
antl Chaucer has provided it with no prologue by way 
of introduction. The portrait of this doctor of physic 
given in the General Prologue is allowed to stand as 
our sole information about the character which, judged 
from a modern standpoint, has in it more of the quack 
than of the reputable practitioner. Neither is the tale 
which Chaucer assigns to the man of medicine partic- 
ularly appropriate to him. One cannot refrain a smile 
at Ten Brink's ingenious suggestion that its ' desperate, 
bloody ending' is 'appropriate to the character of the 
Doctor and his professional acquaintance with violent 
remedies.' One may notice, too, that Virginia's allusion 
to the daughter of Jephthah gives the lie to the state- 
ment of the General ]^rologue that 

His studie was but litel on the bible. 

Chaucer had apparently written the story with another 
purpose in view, j)erhaps with the intention of incor- 
porating it into the Legend of Good Women, and 
finding it in his desk drawer, determined, with his 
accustomed literary thrift, to turn it to account in the 
Canterbury Tales. If not particularly appropriate, it 
is not markedly inappropriate. Possibly the digression 
on the proper bringing up of daughters may have been 
inserted as suitable to the Doctor in his capacity of 
family adviser. 



220 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

One who was not familiar with Chaucer's literary 

methods would immediately assume from the explicit 

statement of the first line that the source of 

Sources. i . i m- t • • x • i i • 

the tale was litus 1j;vius. -Livy s history is, 
of course, the ultimate source ; but the most hasty read- 
ing of the Latin story will show a wide divergence. In 
Livy, Virginius, on hearing the unjust sentence, imme- 
diately snatches up a knife, and without any pause 
buries it in his daughter's breast. This is more natural 
and less revolting than the delibei-ate deed of Chaucer's 
Virginius, The rather barbarous episode of the head 
sent to Appius on a charger is also absent from Livy's 
narrative. Chaucer did not make these changes him- 
self ; for in dealing with themes from antique history 
he is usually chary of alteration. The tale explicitly 
says : — 

This is no fable, 
But knowen for liistorial tliing notable, 
The sentence of it sooth is, out of doiite. 

Moreover, though the change makes possible the affect- 
ing dialogue between Virginia and her father, which is 
the emotional climax of the tale, it involves, as we have 
seen, a certain untruth to nature as compared with 
Livy's treatment. The truth is that Chaucer did not 
go to Livy at all. Indeed, we have no proof that Livy 
was any more than a name to him. The outline of the 
stor}", and the ascription of it to Livy, are taken directly 
from that great storehouse of story, the Roman de la 
Hose. Jean de Menu's narrative is not long, and since 
a comparison of it with Chaucer's tale serves well to 
show the lattei-'s literary methods, I shall translate the 
passage entire.' 

^ Tho story occupies lines 5G13-56S2 of Moon's edition of the Eoman 
de la Hose. Slteat has reprinted the passag-e in tlie Oxford Chaucer, 
vol. 3. pp. 435-437. I have made my translation from liis text. 



THE PHYSICIANS TALE 221 

Did not Appius well deserve to hang-, who made his 
servant undertaUc, by means of false witnesses, a false 
quarrel against the maiden Virginia, who was daugh- 
ter to Virgin ius, as saith Titus Livius, who knows well 
how to relate the case? This he did because lie could 
not have mastery over the maiden, who cared not for 
him, nor for liis last. The false churl said in audience: 
'Sir judge, give sentence for me, for the maid is mine; 
I will ])rove her for my slave against all men living : for 
soon after she was born, she was taken from my house 
and given in keeping to Virginius, where she has been 
brought up. Therefore I demand of you. Sir Appius, 
that you deliver me my slave, for it is right that she 
serve me, and not him who has brought her up ; and if 
Virginius denies this, I am all ready to prove it, for 
I can find good witnesses of the fact.' Thus spake 
the false traitor, who was a retainer of the false judge ; 
and when the plea had gone thus far, before Virgin- 
ius, who was all ready to reply and confound his adver- 
saries, had spoken, Appius gave hasty judgment that 
without delay the maiden should be returned to the 
churl. And when the good gentleman before named, 
good knight and well-renowned, that is to say, Vir- 
ginius, heard this thing, and saw well that he could 
not defend his daughter against Appius, but that he 
would be forced to give her up and deliver her body 
over to shame, he chose injury rather than shame, by a 
wonderful determination, if Titus Livius lies not. For 
in love, and without malice, he straightway cut off tlie 
head of his beautiful daughter Virginia and presented 
it to the judge before all men in full consistory ; and the 
judge, as the story says, straightway gave order that 
he he taken and led away to be slain or hanged. But 
he neither slew him nor hanged him, for the people 
defended him, being moved to great pity as soon as the 



222 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

deed was known ; then, for this evil deed, Appius was 
put in prison, and there quickly slew himself before 
the day of his trial ; and Claudius, who had challenged 
the maiden, was sentenced to death as a malefactor ; but 
Virginius, taking pity on him, won a reprieve for him, 
making suit to the people that he should be sent into 
exile, and all were condemned and put to death who 
were witnesses in the case. 

What Chaucer has done is to reproduce this narrative 
with substantial fidelity, heightening its effectiveness 
Chaucer's somewhat by a freer use of direct discourse, 
Version. while adding of his own fantasy two long 
original passages, which serve to change entirely the 
artistic emphasis of the tale. These passages are the 
charming description of Virginia's maidenly loveliness, 
with the digression on the bringing up of daughters, 
and the infinitely pathetic scene in which Virginia 
learns her father's purpose, and herself chooses death 
rather than shame. Beside the wonderful effectiveness 
of these two passages, the narrative portions sink into 
insignificance, or rather serve as a mere framework 
for the picture of Virginia's spotless purity. In the 
French it is the unjust judge and his righteous pun- 
ishment that receive chief emphasis; with Chaucer, the 
personality of Virginia dominates the whole. The nar- 
rative is not slighted ; it is merely subordinated ; and 
the memory of the reader lingers fondly on the maid 
who 

Floured in virginitee 
With alle humilitee and abstinence. 

THE pardoner's TALE 
The Host has been so wrought upon by the pathos 
of the Physician's tale of Virginia, that he feels it abso- 
lutely essential to his pliysical well-being that he hear a 



THE PARDONER'S TALE 223 

* mery tale.' With a delicate touch of satire, the author 
makes hiiu turn to the Pardoner as one most likely to 
satisfy this need. The Pardoner is ready enough with 
his assent; but the company has reached a wayside 
tavern, whose 'ale-stake,' crowned with its garland, 
projects far over the muddy road, and the physical 
well-being of the Pardoner demands that he stop long 
enough to drink a draught of corny ale and eat a cake. 
The ' gentles ' of the company, however, know only too 
well what to expect when a pardoner undertakes to tell 
a * mery tale.' ' Let him tell us no ribaldry,' they cry. 

• Tel us som moral thing, that we may lere 
Som wit, and thauue wol we gladly here.' 

Ready complaisance is part of the Pardoner's stock in 
trade. 

' I graunte, ywis,' quod he, 'but I mot thinke 
Upon som honest thing, whyl tliat I drinke.' 

Tilings honest and of good report proceed from a par- 
doner's lips only as the result of meditation. 

Tlie Pardoner is, of course, a dreadful hypocrite ; but 
his hypocrisy is a part of his profession merely, and he 
is now on a vacation. He is an honest hypocrite, at least 
in so far as he does not deceive himself, nor try to pass 
himself for a holy man 'among friends.' As he sits 
and quaffs his corny ale and surveys his fellow voy- 
agers, his tongue is loosened, and in a spirit partly of 
bi-avado, but more, I think, with an artist's natural 
pride in his art, he begins to give away some of the 
secrets of his trade. ' Here, in this company, you see, I 
am a very unassuming, good-natured fellow ; but when 
I preach in clnirch, I take pains to assume a haughty 
manner of speech, and put in a word of Latin here 
and there " to saffron with my predicacioun." I show 
my relics — they are really only rags and bones — I 



224 TFIE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

preach alwnys on the sin of avarice, so that my hear- 
ers may give the larger offering. In this way I win a 
hundred marks ^ a year.' 

The Pardoner's reason for giving this frank account 
of his own hypocrisies I take to have been something 
like this. ' I am not really a moral man,' he implies, 
'and I do not intend to take the trouble of keeping up 
appearances on this journey ; but it is ray business to 
give moral discourses, and since you insist on having 
a moral tale, I will give you an example of my pulpit 
oratory.' 

* For, though myself be a ful vicious man, 
A moral tale yet I yow telle can, 
Which I am wont to preche, for to winne. 
Now holde your pees, my tale I wol beginne.' 

The sermon which follows on this preamble consists 
of a highly dramatic story, which is interrupted after 
a few lines by a long discussion on the sins of swear- 
ing, gluttony, dicing, and other of the deadly sins, and 
only continued after an interval of some hundred and 
sixty lines. This discussion contains several touches of 
humor; but our main attention must be occupied with 
the story itself. 

The immediate source of the Pardoner'' s Tale., which 
may have been some fahliau now lost, is not known to 
us ; but the story in its main features is one 
of great antiquity and wide dissemination. 
The earliest form of the tale which has been discovered 
is in an old Hindoo collection of tales, and bears the title 
Vedahhha Jdtaka. Other versions are found in Persian, 
Arabic, Kashmiri, and Tibetan. From the Orient the 
tale was brought to Europe, where versions are found 
in Italian, German, French, Portuguese, and Latin.^ 

^ Equivalent to at least seven hnndred pounds of modern money. 
^ See Originah and Analogues of Some of Chaucer'' s Canterbury Tales, 
pp. 129-134, 4I5-43G. 



THE PARDONER'S TALE 225 

The latest appearance of the story is found in the tale of 

The King's Aiikus, in Kipling's Second Jungle Book. 
The version which bears closest I'esemblance to Chau- 
cer's is found in the 1572 edition of the Cento Novelle 
AnticJie, a collection of tales which probably antedates 
Boccaccio. This tale is in itself so well told, and fur- 
nishes so interesting a comparison with Chaucer, that 
I shall translate it entire. 

Jlere is the story of a hermit, who as he was walk- 
ing through a forest, found very great treasure. 

Walking one day through a forest, a Hermit found a 
large cave which was well concealed, and betaking him- 
self thither — for he was very weary — as he reached the 
cave, he beheld in a certain place a great gleaming ; 
for there was much gold there. Now as soon as he saw 
what it was, incontinently he went away, and began to 
run through the desert as fast as he could go. As he 
was running thus, the Hermit came upon three great 
robbers, who had taken their stand in this forest to rob 
whosoever should pass there. But never as yet had they 
learned that this gold was there. Now as they stood 
concealed, and saw tliis man fleeing so, who had no 
one behind to pursue him, they were at first somewhat 
afeard ; but, notwithstanding, they accosted him to 
know why he fled, for of this they marveled greatly. 
He answered and said: 'My brothers, I flee death, 
who comes after me, pursuing me.' They, seeing neither 
man nor beast that pursued him, said : ' Show us who 
pursues thee, and lead us where this death is.' Then 
the Hermit said to them, ' Come with me, and I will 
show you him ; ' but he begged them in every way that 
they should not seek death, forasmuch as he for his 
part was fleeing him. And they, wishing to find death, 
to see after what fashion he was made, asked him 
nothing else. The Hermit seeing that he could not do 



226 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

otherwise, and being in fear, conducted them to the cave 
whence he had departed, and said to them, ' Here is 
death which pursued me,' and showed them the gold 
that was there ; and incontinently they knew what it 
was, and they began to be exceeding joyful, and to make 
great solace together. Then they dismissed this good 
man, and he went away about his own business ; and 
they began to say to one another how he was a great 
simpleton. Remained all these three robbers together, 
to guard this treasure, and began to reason what they 
should do. One of them answered and said : ' It seems 
to me that since God has given us this high good for- 
tune, we should not depart hence, until we carry away 
all this treasure.' And the other said : ' Let us not do 
so ; let one of us take somewhat of it, and go to the 
city and sell it, and get bread and wine and whatsoever 
else we need, and on this errand let him use the best wit 
he has: let him so do, that he may furnish us forth.' 
To this agreed they all thi'ee together. Now the Devil, 
who is full of devices, and in his wickedness ordains 
as much evil as he can, put into the heart of him who 
went to the city for provisions, ' As soon as I am in the 
city (said he to himself), I will eat and drink as much 
as I need, and then provide myself with certain things 
for which I have use now at the present time ; and then 
I will poison what I carry to my companions : so that 
when they shall both be dead, I shall be lord of all tliat 
treasure, and, as it seems to me, it is so great, that I 
shall be the richest man of all this country as regards 
my having ; ' and as it came to him in thought, so he 
did. He took meat for himself, as much as he needed, 
and then all the rest he poisoned, and so carried it to 
those his companions. 

While he was going to the city, according as we have 
said, if he considered and devised evil to slay his com- 



THE PARDONER'S TALE 227 

panions, to the end that all might remain to him, they 
on their part thought no better of him than he of them, 
and they said to one another : 'As soon as this comrade 
of ours shall return with bread and wine and with the 
otlier things which we need, we will slay him, and then 
we will eat what we want, and then all this great ti-ea- 
sure will be between us two. And as we shall be fewer 
that share it, so much greater part will each of us have.* 
Now comes he who was gone to the city to buy the things 
of which they had need. When he was returned to his 
companions, straightway when they saw him, they were 
upon him with lances and with knives, and slew him. 
As soon as they had him dead, they ate of what he had 
brought ; and as soon as they were filled, both fell down 
dead. And thus they died all three ; for the one slew 
the other as you have heard, and had not the treasure. 
And so o\ar Lord God i)ays traitors ; for they went to 
seek death, and in this manner they found it, and in 
such way as they were worthy of. And the wise man 
wisely fled from it, and the gold remained without a 
master as at first. 

It is easy to see why this tale should have been a 
popular one ; it is in its nature essentially tragic, the 
catastrophe coming as a direct result of evil charac- 
ter ; in the eagerness with which death is sought and 
the ease with which it is found, we have a perfect ex- 
ample of dramatic irony. 

The effectiveness of the Pardoners Tale depends 
first on the effectiveness of its theme, as shown in the 
Italian novella^ and in hardly less measure on -rij^pj^j.. 
the setting which Chaucer has given to it. In doners 
the background of the story looms that most 
terrible and mysterious force, the plague, death raised 
to its highest power. In our Western world of sanitary 
science, widespread pestilence has ceased to be a matter 



228 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

of national experience. To realize what it means, we 
must read in our newspapers of its ravages in India or 
Cliina, or better still, read the accounts of Thucydides 
or Boccaccio or T)eFoe. But to Chaucer and his readers 
the plague was a matter of personal experience. Four 
times during the reign of Edward III, in 1348-49, 1361- 
63, 1369, and 1375-76, England was swept by pesti- 
lence. In the first of these plagues, the same which 
Boccaccio describes in the Introduction of the Decam- 
eron, we are told that half the population of England 
perished. 

A highly interesting feature of Boccaccio's descrip- 
tion of the plague is the account he gives of its vary- 
ing effect on the moral tone of Florentine society. Some 
gave themselves up to religious exercise ; others shut 
themselves up in their houses, ate the most nourishing 
food, and kept their minds occu})ied with pleasant top- 
ics ; but many, in the conviction that to-morrow they 
should die, spent to-day in eating, drinking, and making 
merry. It is to tliis last class that the three 'riotours' 
of the Pardoner s Tale belong. In the Flemish town 
where the scene of the story is laid, a thousand victims 
have already fallen ; but unchastened by the calamity, 
the three ' riotours ' sit in drunken revelry at their 
tavern, though it is not yet nine of the day. Amid their 
laughter and oaths comes the solemn clink of the fu- 
neral bell. It is the corpse of one of their own friends, 
suddenly stricken as he sat drunk upon his bench. 
Though moved to no amendment of life, they are not 
sufficiently callous to continue their merry-making. In 
drunken rage they vow to seek out this false traitor 
Death and be revenged. The taverner has mentioned 
a great village a mile or more away, where not a 
human soul is left alive. Surely here victorious Death 
must keep his abode. The background darkens, as the 



THE PARDONER'S TALE 229 

three 'riotours,' after taking that ill-kept oath of 
nuitual faith, with swords drawn and their mouths 
full of curses, rush madly towards the city of Death. 
We feel already that doom hangs over them. They are 
what a Scotchman calls 'fey,' marked out for death. 
All this, it will be noticed, is absent from the Italian 
novella. 

Chaucer now provides a contrast of overwhelmint' 
power. An old, poor man, 'al forwrapped save his 
face,' meets them at a stile, which marks, perhaps, 
the confines of the village they are seeking. It is 
* crabbed age and youth,' drunken excitement and calm 
philosophic meditation. 

' Xe deeth, alias ! ne wol nat han my lyf ; 
Thus walke I, lyk a restelees caityf, 
And on the ground, wliich is my modres gate, 
I knokke witli my staf, hothe erly and late, 
And seye, " leve moder, leet ine in ! 
Lo, how I vanish, flesh, and blood, and skin I 
Alias ! whan shui my bones been at reste ? 
^loder, with yow wolde I chaunge my cheste, 
That in my chambre loiige tynie hath be, 
Ye ! for an hey re clout to wrappe me ! " 
But yet to me she wol nat do that grace, 
For which ful pale and welked is my face.' 

He, too, it seems, is a seeker after death. But who 
is he, this mysterious passenger ? Whence comes he ? 
whither goes he ? Whose is the treasure that lies 
beneath the oak? and how came it there? To none 
of these questions does Chaucer so much as hint an 
answer. We feel that the old man is something other 
than the hermit of the Italian novella ; the hermit 
was fleeing death, this man is seeking it. One of the 
' riotours ' accuses him of being Death's spy; we are 
tempted to believe that he is rather very Death him- 
self. But Chaucer does not say so ; ho wraps him iu 



230 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

a mystery as deep as the mystery of death. The pale, 
withered face and heavily shi-ouded figure rise like 
a vapor, and fade as suddenly into thin air. Was he 
a reality or a vision? And the treasure, those eight 
bushels of gold florins, were they real and palpable, 
or only a dreadful mocking vision ? Reality or vision, 
they have in them the power of deadly work. 

The three doomed revelers run up the crooked way ; 
but instead of grim, antic Death, they find what seems 
to them the very fullness of life. Here is provision 
for endless days and nights of dissipation. They are 
struck into silence by the vision. The clink of funeral 
bell, the mad quest of Death, the mysterious figure, all 
are forgotten. The fumes of drunkenness clear away. 
They are at once practical. No questions are asked ; 
the money must be secured. Why care for Death? 
Here is life, and life in more abundance. 

The cuts are drawn ; the messenger is dispatched ; 
the two plots are laid, and the poison is bought. A 
few brief strokes sketch in the triple murder. 

Thus ended been thise homicydes two, 
And eek the false empoysoner also. 

Three dead bodies and a heap of worthless gold ! They 
have found Death — the vanquisher. The strange old 
man totters on his way, tapping with his stick at the 
gates of our common grave, the earth, still seeking the 
death which these so readily have found. Will he ever 
find it? or is he doomed to a withering Tithonus-like 
immortality, deathless as Death itself? 

This is the tale of the Pardoner, — full of tragic 
terror ; dramatic in its structure, transacted as it is 
almost wholly in dialogue ; never hurried, but marching 
forward with sure strides, unimpeded with a single 
superfluous detail, irresistible and inevitable as death 
and niiiht. 



THE WIFE OF BATH'S PROLOGUE 231 

As for the moral of it, one could draw morals enough 
if it were desirable. Tiie miserable mountebank of 
a Pardoner sees in it only the exemplilication of his 
favorite theme : Radix malorum est cupiditas. 

One reads of the preacher AVhitefield that, in address- 
ing a seaman's mission in New York, he described a 
shipwreck with such vividness that a hardened old salt 
jumped to his feet and cried, ' Man the boats ! she 'II 
sink ! ' And again that in Philadelphia the utilitarian 
skeptic Ben Franklin emptied his purse into the preach- 
er's collection-box. With such a tale as this the Par- 
doner may well have passed off his spurious relics, and 
won the hundred marks a year which he boasts of as 
his income. The sublime audacity of the Pardoner, how- 
ever, is reserved till the end of the tale, when in the 
glow of his oratory he offers his worthless relics to the 
very company to whom he has made an expose of his 
lying methods, I hardly think he expected to win their 
silver ; as we have seen, he is on a vacation. It is rather 
the conscious artist in hypocrisy, who wishes to give a 
crowning example of his art. 

THE WIFE OF BATH's PROLOGUE 

The Wife of Bath's Prologue is a dramatic mono- 
logue in which a highly characterized, but at the same 
time a typical, woman of the middle class is made to 
reveal her own personality, narrate the events of her 
own life, and pronounce her opinions on the topic which 
is to her the most vital of our human life. At every 
step one is conscious of the new influences brought into 
our literature by the Italian Renaissance. The intense 
interest in all sorts and conditions of men, without 
which our great dramatic literature could never have 
been ; the breaking down of class distinction, which 
makes a cloth-weaver ' of bisyde Bathe ' fit subject for 



232 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

a poet's verse, and gives to her thoughts and experi- 
ences a vakie as real as those of a countess or queen ; 
and Lastly, the ahnost revolutionary daring with which 
the poet makes his creation demolish the cherished 
mediaeval ideal of celibacy, — all these proclaim the 
author of the Wife of' Bath's Prologue as the first 
modern man of England, with the virtues and faults 
of our modern world. 

Though this composition is essentially one of Chau- 
cer's most original productions, here as elsewhere he is 

indebted to 'olde bokes.' The original con- 
Sources. , TTTT r T-» 1 • 1 

ception 01 the vv ife or Jt>ath is due, appar- 
ently, to an allegorical personage in the Roman de la 
Hose named La Vieille, a personage who, though first 
introduced in the earlier part of the poem by Guil- 
laume de Lorris, is elaborated in Jean de Meun's satiri- 
cal continuation of the work. But though the points 
of similarity are numerous, La Vieille remains, as her 
name indicates, an abstraction, or at most a type ; while 
the Wife of Bath is a living, breathing woman. Other 
hints for the elaboration of the character Chaucer seems 
to have drawn from Jean de Meun's description of Le 
Jaloux, an old married man, who attributes to woman 
many of the qualities which the Wife of Bath eagerly 
claims for herself.^ For the long discussion of celibacy, 
however, Chaucer has gone directly to a work of St. 
Jerome, used also by the author of the Roman de la 
Rose, known as Hleronymus contra Joviiiianum, in 
which the holy father demolishes with much acerbity 
the argument of one Jovinian, who had ventured to 
write against the practice of celibacy. In the course 
of this argument Jerome inserts a long extract from 
a lost work of a Greek named Theophrastus, entitled 

1 See W. E. Mead, ' The Prolog-ne of the Wife of Bath's Tale,' Publi- 
cations of the Modern Language Association of America, IC. 388-10-4. 



THE WIFE OF BATH'S PROLOGUE 233 

Liher Aurcolus dc Nnptlis. A further source is the 
JEpistola Valerii ad Rvfinum de non Ducenda Uxore^ 
printed among the works of Jerome, though written 
much Liter. Tiiese three works, it will be observed, 
were all contained in the favorite volume of the Wife 
of Bath's fifth husband, the vohuiie which the irate 
lady forces him to burn. The delicious humor of Chau- 
cer's procedure consists in suffering the serious argu- 
ments of a father of the church to be quoted and 
refuted by such a one as the Wife of Bath. Bitter 
attacks on the frailty of woman were a commonplace 
of the olil monastic literature : but Chaucer is enfraued 
in no moral diatribe. Neither does he feel called upon 
to espouse the cause of woman vilified ; in the spirit 
of the dramatist he creates a woman who not only 
exemplifies all that had been charged against woman, 
but who even glories openly in the possession of these 
qualities, and by his art forces us to take her point of 
view, and all but sympathize with her. 

It is hard to say how far Chaucer himself was in 
8ym])athy with the views wliich the Wife of Bath pro- 
pounds on the subject of marriage and vir- The Argu- 
ginity. That he was no mere glorifier of the ^„!^ins(. 
sensual may go without saying ; but that he celibacy. 
recognized the fallacy of the prevailing ideal of celi- 
bacy, and that besides his merely dramatic interest in 
the Wife of Bath he was also interested in breaking 
down a false idol, is quite probable. Professor Louus- 
bury has called attention to the fact that Chaucer has 
twice put into the mouth of the Host, in his words 
to the Monk (B 3133-3154) and to the Nun's Priest 
(B 4637-4646), opinions of a similar character, and on 
the basis of these facts he calls the Wife's Prologue a 
'revolutionary document,' in which tlie poet, shielding 
himself behind the ample figure of this clothmaker of 



234 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Bath, has spoken out with playful exaggeration his 
opinion on one of the questions of the day. 

Whether Chaucer's or not, the opinions are revo- 
lutionary enough even at the present day. This four- 
teenth-century advocate of a return to nature is, how- 
ever, so prolix in her speech, and so given to digi'cssion, 
that it is not wholly a work of supererogation to sum 
up briefly the argument she advances. 

A little while ago she had been told that since Christ 
went to but one wedding, she too, the much-married, 
should have confined herself to a single husband. Then, 
too, what a sharp word Christ spoke to the woman of 
Samaria anent her five husbands, — precisely the num- 
ber which the Wife has reached herself ! But the good 
woman frankly confesses that the significance of that 
rebuke she has never been able to understand. There 
is another 'gentil text,' though, the meaning of which 
she can easily grasp, — the command to be fruitful and 
multiply. God never defined the number of husbands 
which might be taken. 

But of no nombre mencioun made he, 
Of bigamye or of octogamye. 

(Notice the delicious coinage of a new word, necessary 
to contain the new wine of her advanced opinions.) 
Solomon had many wives at once. ' Would that similar 
liberty were allowed to me ! ' sighs the Wife of Bath. 

So far, it will be noticed, the argument has dealt 
with second marriage ; but there are those who recom- 
mend the avoidance of mari'iage altogether, and praise 
perpetual virginity. Yet God has never expressly com- 
manded virginity, and the apostle, though he counsels 
it, does not enjoin it. Up to this point the discussion 
has consisted of an appeal to the authority of holy 
writ ; the Wife now descends boldly to the ground of 
common sense. If every one should practice virginity, 



THE WIFE OF BATH'S PROLOGUE 235 

who, pray, is to beget virgins and bring them forth ? 
It may be that virginity is more excellent than the 
married state ; very well, wooden vessels are needed 
in the household as well as golden. The Wife of Bath 
is quite contented with the humbler lot. Once more 
there is a bold appeal to connnon sense : it is the 
obvious intention of nature that man should marry 
and bring forth issue. Having established her point, 
she can afford to be generous to her opponents; they 
may follow virginity if they please : — 

I nil envye no virginitee; 
Lat liem be breed of pared whete-seed, 
And hit us wj'ves lioten barly-breed ; 
And yet with barly-breed, Mark telle can, 
Our loi"d Jesu refresshed many a man. 
In swich estaat as god hath cleped us 
I wol persevere, I nam nat precious. 

Despite its playful tone, the argument is a good one, 
and it may well be believed that Chaucer is at least 
half in earnest. 

The chief interest of this Prologue lies not in its 
character as a controversial pamphlet, but in ,pjjg -^^^ 
its portrayal of a human type. It is a great of Bath, 
human document. 

Looked at superficially, the Wife of Bath is a thor- 
oughly healthy animal, somewhat over forty, of 
substantial figure, dressed conspicuously, exceedingly 
coarse in her speech, but withal a friendly, good-natured 
woman, and by no means laclung in shrewd, practical 
wisdom. Tliough she has picked up many odds and 
ends of knowledge from her scholar-husband, Jankin, 
her manner of speech shows her to be essentially illit- 
erate. Iler whole theory of life is one of frank ani- 
malism. This is what one takes in at first glance, 
and this, probably, is all that her companions on the 



236 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Canterbury journey saw in her; but Chaucer saw more. 
He saw that with all her apparent gayety, she was not 
happy. 

She begins her long preamble with mention of 'wo 
that is in niariage.' She argues at length to prove 
that marriage is the 8ummuf)i honum of life, and she lias 
had the singular good fortune to enter five times into 
this blessed state ; surely she should know the quintes- 
sence of bliss. But none of her marriages has been 
fortunate; of her husbands she says: 'Three of hem 
were gode and two were badde ; ' but with none of them 
was she happy. The first three she had married for 
their money. Tliey were too old to satisfy her lust ; 
they ciiided and harangued her; they would not even 
give her money enough to satisfy her love of finery. 
The fourth husband was a reveler, who made her as 
jealous as she had made his predecessors. The fifth, 
clerk Jankin, tried to lord it over her, and told her 
uncomplimentary stories from his books. When she 
hael at last won the mastery, he disobligingly died. Is 
not this ' tribulacioun in mariage ' ? 

She is haunted, moreover, with a vague suspicion 
that, argue as she may to the contrary, her way of 
life is not the right one, a subconscious conviction that 
reaches masterful expression in the single exclamation: 

Alias ! alias ! that ever love was sitme ! 

A further proof of her failure to attain happiness is 
found in her restlessness. As the souls of the lustful 
in the first circle of the Inferno are blown about con- 
tinually by the whirlwind, so she has been driven by 
her restlessness to seek strange lands. She has been to 
Rome, to Santiago in Spain, to Boulogne, to Cologne. 
Thrice she has made the long journey to Jerusalem. 
When we meet her, she is on the road to Canterbury. 



THE WIFE OF BATH'S PROLOGUE 237 

It Is tlie same insatiable lust for ti-avel which marks 
the restlessness of our modern life. 

Worst of all, the Wife of Bath is growing old. Mar- 
rii'd lirst at the age of twelve, she is already forty 
when she marries her fifth husband. She must now be 
Hearing fifty. Her good days are done. If, as Horace 
tells us, no piety can give pause to wrinkles and sure- 
advancing age, neither can the impiety of rank animal- 
ism. It is not only ' indomitable death ' whose approach 
she has to dread, but the dulling of the sharp edge of 
pleasure on which her fancied happiness depends. 

'But age, alias ! th.at al wol envenyme, 
Hath me biraft my bciuitee and my pith; 
Lat go, fare-wel, the devel go therwith ! 
The flonr is goon, ther is na-more to telle, 
The breii, as I best can, now moste I selle; 
Bnt yet to be right mery wol 1 fonde.' 

The spirit of reckless bravado in these lines cannot 
blind us to the torribh^ truth they contain. Tlie last line 
in particular tells us that the gayety of her character is 
a forced gayety : — 

' But yet to be right mery ivol I fonde J 

There is, as Professor Lounsbury has said, a profound 
'un(h'rtone of melancholy' running through all the 
apj>aient gayety of the piece. 

It is this deeper significance of the character which 
we must urge against those who are tempted to quarrel 
with the Prologue on the score of morality, Chaucer 
has indeed chosen to depict an immoral woman, and he 
has allowed her to reveal herself with a coarse plainness 
of language which is sure to shock the fastidious of 
a more ]irudish age, and which may well have shocked 
the more fastidious of Chaucer's contemporaries: liut 
we must remember thiit Chaucer has not apologized for 



238 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

her immorality, nor attempted to represent it as other 
than it is. Some readers may find the poem disgusting; 
but no one can call it seductive. Chaucer has, more- 
over, preserved the moral balance by his clear appre- 
ciation of the fact that unstinted gratification of sense 
is not the road to happiness. 

THE WIFE OF BATh's TALE 

It was Chaucer's first intention, as we have seen 
above, ^ to put in the mouth of the Wife of Bath the 
* merry* fabliau of the Parisian merchant and his un- 
faithful wife which we know as the Shipman's Tale. 
The general tenor of this tale is thoroughly appropri- 
ate to the Wife of Bath; but Chaucer conceived a new 
and better idea. The good woman's prologue has dealt 
with the 'wo that is in mariage.' She has proposed a 
problem — how to be happy though married ; and in her 
own tale and in those of the Clerk, the Merchant, and 
the Franklin which follow are presented various answers 
to the problem or contributions towards its solution. 
Recent critics have called this set of tales the 'marriage 
group.' 

In the Wife's own tale the knight, confronted with 
the choice whether he would have his wife old and foul 
but faithful and devoted, or yomig and fair but skittish, 
leaves the decision to the lady herself, giving her the 
mastery and sovereignty over him. As a reward for his 
submission, she promises to be both fair and good. 

And thus they live, unto hir lyves ende. 
In parfit joye. * 

The recipe for marital happiness is to let your wife have 
her own way in everything. 

» See page 189. 



THE WIFE OF BATH'S TALE 239 

After the quarrelsome interlude of Friar and Sum- 
moner is concluded, the Clerk of Oxford returns to the 
theme of marriage with a tale addressed directly to 
the Wife of Bath, which offers exactly the opposite an- 
swer. Marquis Walter rules his ever-patient wife with 
the most autocr-atic sovereignty. To all his commands, 
however outrageous, she gives unquestioning, uncom- 
plaining obedience; and, her twelve years of trial over — 

Ful many a yeer in heigh prosperitee 
Liven thise two in concord and in reste. 

The Clerk's playful recipe for happiness is complete 
wifely submission. 

The Merchant's Tale offers no recipe for happiness, 
but elaborates further the woe that is in marriage, par- 
ticularly in such an ill-assorted union as that of January 
and INIay, perhaps in any marriage entered into with 
the sole idea of 'fol delit.' Chaucer had been reading 
the Miroir de Manage of Deschamps, and from it he 
draws in considerable measure the long satirical dis- 
cussion of marriage w^hich occupies the earUer part of 
the Merchants Tale.^ 

The final contribution to the debate is found in the 
Franklin s Tale. Dorigen and her husband Ar\aragus 
have found the solution in mutual forbearance. The 
husband swears that he will 'take no maistrye agayn 
hir wil'; and she in return promises that there shall 
never be dispute between them, that she will be his 
'humble trewe wyf.' This, says the FrankUn, is the 
only way to married happiness : — 

For o thing, sires, saufly dar I seye. 
That frendes everich other moot obeye, 

' See the article by J. L. Lowes on 'Chaucer and the Miroir de 
Mariagc,' Modem Philology, 8. 165-186, 305-334. ^ 



240 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

If they wol longe holden companye. 
Love wol nat ben constreyned by maistrye; 
Whan maistrie comth, the god of love anon 
Beteth hise winges, and farewel ! he is gon ! * 

Stories closely akin to that told by the Wife of Bath 
are found elsewhere in English literature. Gower tells 
essentially the same story, though in much 
less artistic form, in the first book of the Con- 
fessio Amantis. In Bishop Percy's folio manuscript 
there are two ballads — the Wedding of Sir Gawain 
and Dame Ragnell and the Marriage of Sir Gawaine 
— which develop the same theme. Still another in- 
stance of the tale is the border ballad of King Hen- 
rie in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Sim- 
ilar stories of a loathly lady who becomes beautiful in 
her marriage-bed are found in Icelandic, Gaelic, French, 
German, and in the Orient. Indeed, the idea of dis- 
enchantment by a kiss is a common theme of fairy 
tales, as in the well-known nursery story of the Sleep- 
ing Beauty. 2 

Though Gower's version and Chaucer's are nearer 
akin to one another than to any other of the tales known 
to us, neither seems to have been direct source for 
the other. Dr. G. H. Maynadier,^ who has gone most 
thoroughly into the question, believes that the tales 
of Chaucer and Gower go back ultimately to an Old 

^ Through these tales of the 'marriage group' there runs another 
thread of common interest, the discussion of 'gentillesse.' The doc- 
trine that 'gentillesse* depends not on birth but on excellence of 
character, promulgated by the loathly lady in the Wife's tale, is ex- 
emplified by the perfect bearing of the lowly-born Griselda. The 
Franklin is impressed by the ' gentillesse ' of the Squire and his tale of 
Canace. He wishes that his own son 'mighte lerne gentillesse aright.' 
The Franklin's Tale shows that a clerk can ' doon a gentil dede ' as well 
as a knight or squire. 

* See Originals and Analogues, pp. 481-524. 

* The Wife of Bath's Tale, its Sources and Analogues, London, 1901. 



THE WIFE OF BATH'S TALE 241 

Irish original ; but his argument, though interesting, 
is so involved that one fails to be convinced by it. 

The Friar, always ready, as the Sumnioner declares, 
to intermeddle in matters that do not concern him, has 
laughed at the undue length of the Wife's The Tale 
pieaiuble to her tale. She does not imniedi- itself. 
ately answer him ; indeed, the loud-voiced Summoner 
gives her no chance ; but when the Host has called the 
Friar and Sumnioner to order, she takes occasion, in 
the opening paragraph of her tale, to pay back her 
critic with a clever dig. Her tale is to be a fairy tale, 
and so she begins with the remark that 

In th' olde dayes of tlie king Arthour, 
Of which that Britons speken greet honour, 
Al was this laud fiilfild of fayerye. 
The elf-queen, with hir joly conipauy.e, 
Dannced ful ofte in many a greue mede; 

but now their place has been taken by these limiters 
and other holy friars : — 

For ther as wont to walken was an elf, 
Ther walketh now the limitour himself. 

As a result of this change, — 

Wommen may go saufly up and doun, 
In every bush, or under every tree ; 
Ther is noon other incubus but he. 
And he ne wol doon hem but dishonour.' 

The Wife of Bath has introduced her tale and paid 
back the Friar at the same time ; while the combina- 
tion of delicate imagination with coarse insinuation 
serves admirably as a transition from the Prologue to 
the tale itself. 

1 I. e., ' He vill not carry them ofF to fairy-land ; he will only dis- 
honor them.' This is the reading: of Skeat's text and of the best 
MSS. The Globe Edition, following: the Cambridge MS., reads: 'And 
he ne wol doon hem noii dishonour,' which must, of course, be taken 
1 as sarcasm. 



242 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

The story proceeds smoothly for a while, till the 
knight begins to collect answers to the riddle, 'What 
thing is it that wommen most desyren?' The Wife 
finds herself face to face again with the question she 
has debated in her Prologue ; ami fifty-seven lines are 
devoted to a discussion of the various answers sug- 
gested, and to the tale of Midas's wife (learned doubt- 
less from husband number five). One may notice that 
she here returns for a while from the land of fiction 
to the problems of reality. This is suggested subtly 
by a change of tense, and by the introduction of the 
pronoun 'we,' which indicates her lively personal par- 
ticipation in the matter. Compare, for example, the 

Somme seyde, wommen loven best richesse 
of line 925 with 

Somme seyde, tb.at our hertes been most esed, 
Wben tbat we been ytlatered and yplesed 

of lines 929, 930, and with change to the present tense : 

And somme seyn, how that we loven best 
For to be free, and do right as us lest. 

The story is resumed with the charmingly poetical 
vision of the four and twenty ladies dancing under a 
forest side, who vanish as the knight approaches. The 
picture is not elaborated as Spenser would have treated 
it;* it is merely suggested to the imagination. It is 
sufficient, however, to furnish us with the hint that the 
loathly lady is not of human kind. One may notice 
in passing how Chaucer has managed to introduce an 
element of surprise into the story. The hag does not, 
as in Gower, specify the condition on which she will 
extricate the knight from his difficulty, she merely 
demands the granting of her first request; not till 
after the knight's triumphant answer to the queen, is 
1 Cf. Faerie Qtieene, 6. 10. 10-18. 



THE WIFE OF BATH'S TALE 243 

marriage mentioned. Nor does the reader learn the 
answer to the riddle till the knight speaks it out in full 
court. 

lirought to the fulfillment of his pledge, the knight 
ungenerously, though not unnaturally, objects that his 
wife is loathly and old and come of low kind. This 
gives occasion for the long and excellent sermon on the 
nature of true nobility which occupies the last quarter 
of the tale : — 

Loke who that is most vertuoiis alway, 
Privee and apert, and most entendetli ay 
To do the gentil dedes tliat he can, 
And tak him for the grettest gentil man. 

The noble ideas nobly expressed in this speech, which 
suggest familiar words of Burns and of Tennyson, 
though part of Chaucer's personal creed, as shown by 
their reappearance in his balade of Gcntilesse, are not 
his original discovery. A similar strain of democracy 
may be found in Dante, in Petrarch, in Boccaccio, 
and in the Roman dc la Rose. Some exception has 
been taken, however, to the dramatic appropriateness 
of such sentiments to the character of the Wife of 
Bath. Ten Brink says, for example : 'The thoroughly 
sound moral of the long sermon given by the wise old 
woman, before her metamorphosis, to her young, unwill- 
ing husband, comes more from the heart of the poet 
than from the Wife of Bath.' ' But is not the Wife 
of Bath, as a prosperous member of the middle class, 
precisely the person to assert that true gentility is 
not the peculiar possession of the nobly born? If the 
poet has lent to these lines a tone of higher poetry 
than the Wife can be conceived capable of, he has done 
only what Shakespeare does continually. The function 
of the dramatist is not that of the mere repoi'ter. 
^ History of English Literature (English trans.), 2. 1G3. 



244 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Another possible objection that may be urged against 
this passage is tliat so long a digression interrupts too 
seriuusly the progress of the tale. On the contrary, 
it is an artistic device of the highest skill. A loathly 
hag is to be transformed suddenly into a beautiful lady. 
Such a process makes a large draught on our powers 
of belief. The high poetry of the long discourse serves 
to bridge over the change ; our minds are for the time 
being diverted from what is going on. We are held 
captive by the spell of her poetry, and at the conclusion 
of the speech are not surprised to find that the speaker 
is of wondrous beauty. As a further instance of Chau- 
cer's art in the management of the metamorphosis, we 
may notice that he refrains from any detailed descrip- 
tion either of her ugliness or of her beauty. Our minds 
are less startled by the change from ugliness in general 
to beauty in general than by that of a definite type of 
ugliness into a definite type of beauty. 

The tale is one of Chaucer's poetic triumphs. 

THE friar's tale 

At the conclusion of the Wife of Bath's long pre- 
amble, it will be remembered, the Friar had 'intermed- 
dled ' with a derisive laugh at the good woman's long- 
windedness, and had been promptly called to order by 
the Summoner. Eacli promised to tell a tale which 
should not be complimentary to the other's profession ; 
and only with difficulty could the Host calm them 
down, and win a hearing for the Wife of Bath. All 
through tliis enforced silence, the quarrel has been 
smouldering ; and the Friar has cast dark looks upon 
his natural foe. When Dame Alice has ended, the 
Friar hastens to seize the opportunity to strike the first 
blow. His tale is ably paid back by the Summoner ; 
and each reader njust decide for himself which comes 



THE FRIARS TALE 245 

out Letter in this war of tales. The enmity of the 
Fiiar and the Summoner is not come of new ; their 
quarrel is the quarrel of their professions. The Sum- 
moner belongs to the organization of the so-called sec- 
ular clergy, which includes the parish priests, the arch- 
deacons, and the bishops. The Friar, as a member of 
a mendicant order, belongs to the so-called religious 
clergy — those who had taken definite religious vows, 
and belonged to world-wide organizations, which held 
authority directly from the Pope, and were independ- 
ent of the jurisdiction of the national church. Such 
a co-existence of separate ecclesiastical organizations 
within the same realm gave rise, of course, to endless 
jars ; for the religions clergy were continually en- 
croaching on the privileges of their secular brethren, 
and the latter not unnaturally tried to curb their 
power. Thus the Friar boasts that he and his order 
are outside the Sumraoner's jurisdiction ; to which the 
Summoner gives countercheck quarrelsome b}-- the 
answer that so are ' the wommen of the styves.' Since 
we know that the Friar could rage ' as it were rijrht 
a whelpe,' and since the ' fyr-reed cherubines face ' of 
the Summoner portends a choleric disposition, their 
quarrel was a foregone conclusion. As it was appar- 
ently Chaucer's purpose to show up both professions 
impartially, he chose the clever device of ' making 
each of these rascals demolish the other,' a device 
which serves also to heighten the dramatic realism of 
the Canterbury pilgrimage. 

The Friar^s Tale is merely an application to the 
profession of the Summoner of a popular anecdote, pre- 
viously told at the expense of a bailiff or a „ 

, , 11 • Sources. 

lawyer, l)ut equally ap])T'oprinto to any otiier 
unpopular functionary. Two annlognes to Chaucer's 
tale are given iu the Chancer Society's volume of 



246 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Originals and Analogues. The first of these, and the 
one which illustrates most clearly what the poet had 
to build on, is found in a volume, printed probably 
about 1480, written by a Dominican friar named John 
Herolt, which is intended as a help to sermon-writers. 
The second section of the work contains a series of 
short anecdotes which a preacher might find useful 
as examples to point his moral. Among them is the 
story just referred to. Of course this volume appeared 
nearly a century later than the Canterbury Tales ; but 
the anecdote may well have been in circulation long 
before. If Chaucer found it in some similar work on 
sermon-writing, its appropriateness to the preaching 
Friar is very obvious. The heightened effectiveness 
of Chaucer's tale, which, in the absence of any evi- 
dence to the contrary, we may suppose due to his own 
genius, is clearly shown by a comparison with this 
Latin Narrative of a certain Wicked Seneschal which 
I shall give here in translation. 

There was a certain man, a seneschal and lawyer, 
a calumniator of the poor, and a despoiler of goods of 
every sort. One day he went to court to bring a suit, 
and to enrich himself. A certain man met him in the 
M'ay and said to him, 'Where are you going? and 
what is your business.'** The first man answered, 'I 
am going to make money.' And the second said, 'I 
am just such a one as you. Let 's go together.' When 
the first man consented to this, the second said to him, 
' How do you make your money ? ' And he answered, 
* The substance of the poor, as long as they have any- 
thing, which I get by law-suits and prosecutions, either 
justly or unjustly. Now I have told you how I make 
my money, tell me, prithee, how do you make yours?' 
The second answered him and said, ' I put down to my 
profit everything that is given to the devil in curses.' 



THE FRIAR'S TALE 247 

?The first man laughed, and made fun of the second, 
i not knowing that he was the devil. After a little, as 

■ they were going through a town, they heard a poor 
flman curse a calf, which he was leading to market, 
■■ because it would not go straight ; and they also heard 
' a similar curse from a woman who was beating her 
I boy. Then said the first to the second, ' Here 's a 
^ cliance for you to make money if you wish. Take the 
fjboy and the calf.' The second answered, 'I can't, be- 

■ cause they are not cursing from their hearts.' Now 
twhen they had gone a little further, a band of poor 
ii men came along, going to the law-court, and seeing the 
'■ seneschal, they all began to hurl curses at him with 

one accord. And the second said to the first, ' Do you 

i hear what they say ? ' 'I hear,' said he, ' but it makes 

J no difference to me.' And the second said, ' They are 

cursing from their hearts, and giving you over to the 

' devil, and so you shall be mine.' And straightway he 

snatched him up and disappeared with him.^ 

This is a clever and diverting anecdote ; but Chau- 
cer's tale is something more. We may notice first of 
all the heightened realism given by the de- chaucer's 
tailed description of the Summoner and his '^'^^^- 
methods, and of the fiend, as he rides in his gay dis- 
guise of yeoman's green ; by the vivid picture of the 
carter urging his horses, Brok and Scot, through the 
heavy slough, whacking them and cursing them while 
the wagon sticks, calling down all the blessings of 
! heaven upon them when the wheels begin to turn ; 
and by the half-humorous, half-pathetic figure of old 
' Mabely indignantly repelling the Summoner's persecu- 
: tion, wishing him and the new pan, which he covets, 
both to the devil together. The dialogue between the 

1 Still another analogue, from tlie Ziirich poet, Usteri (17G3-1S27X 
is given by F. Votter in Anylia, Btiblatl, 13. 180, 181. 



218 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

two travelers is, as Ten Brink calls it, a little master- 
piece. Though he is entertaining him unawares, the 
Suramoner finds the fiend such eminently congenial 
company, that he immediately pledges him a life-long 
friendship. Shameless as he is, he none the less tries 
to hide the fact of his detested calling : — 

He dorste nat, for verray filthe and shame, 
Seye that he was a soiuuour, for the name. 

Deliciously humorous is the series of hints by which 
the fiend gradually reveals his true identity. He, too, 
is a sort of bailiff, who must gather in his lord's rents. 
As for his dwelling-place, it is ' fer in the north con- 
tree ' (the region where Lucifer set up his power) ; ' 
the yeoman hopes to see his new friend there some 
day ; he will give him such clear directions before they 
part, that he cannot possibly miss it. The fiend's ac- 
count of his own unscrupulous methods draws from 
the Summoner a frank confession that he makes off 
with everything that he can find, ' but-if it be to 
hevy or to hoot.' The Summoner must know the name 
of this stranger so completely after his own heart. 

This yeraan gan a litel for to smyle. 
' Brother,' quod he, ' wiltow that I thee telle ? 
I am a feend, my dwelling is in helle.' 

The Summoner is naturally a little startled at the 
revelation, but not for long ; he is not the man to give 
up so charming an acquaintance for a trifling circum- 
stance. One may be a little taken aback on discover- 
ing thnt a chance acquaintance is a rabid anarchist or 
violent atheist. If he is well dressed, and a gentleman, 
we can pardon him some eccentricities of belief ; and 

1 The hell of Teutonic mytholog-y was located in the north, as the 
region of darkness. A false interpretation of Isaiah 14. 12-14 may 
have helped to incorporate the same idea into Christian myth. Ci'. 
Milton, Paradise Lost, 5. 755. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE CANTERBURY TALES, GROUPS E, F, G, H, I 

THE clerk's tale 
Apparently the university students of the fourteenth 
century were as diverse a lot as those of the present 
day. Clerk Nicholas of the Miller s Tale^ with his 
gay sautrye,' and the two Cambridge students who 
take their mischievous revenge on the Miller of Trunip- 
ington, represent one species of the genus ; while the 
poor clerk of the Canterbury pilgrimage belongs to 
the class which we thoughtlessly dismiss with the word 
'grind.' Lean he is of figure, sober of his bearing, 
threadbare as to his coat : — 

For him was lever have at his beddes heed 

Twenty bokes, clad in bhik or reed, 

Of Aristotle and his philosophye, 

Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrye. 



Of studie took he most cure and most hede. 

Sharply contrasted with the ready assurance of 'hendo 
Nicholas ' is the bashful reserve of this nameless Clerk 
of Oxenford : — 

' Sir clerk of Oxenford,' our hoste sayde, 

' Ye ryde as coy and stille as dooth a mayde, 

Were newe spoused, sitting at the bord; 

This day ne horde I of your tonge a word. 

I trow ye studio aboute som sophyme.' 

So academic is his bearing, that the Host feels it neces- 
sary to request that he refrain from preaching, and from 
too scholarly a manner of speech. But the Clerk is no 



254 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

mere mechanical ' griml.' We discover the eager play 
of an active and original mind in his very way of speak- 
ing, ' short and quik, and f ul of hy sentence.' It is a 
delight to see the sudden flash of enthusiasm with which 
he refers to the great and worthy clerk, Fraunceys 
Petrark. That he is by no means lacking in a healthy 
vein of roguish humor, the closing stanzas of his tale 
show clearly enough. That the Host's warning against 
too lofty and pedantic a style was superfluous, the tale 
itself may bear witness. It is written in 'an honest 
method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more 
handsome than fine.' 

In res2)onse to the Host's command to tell a 
tale, the Clerk says : — 



Sources. 



I wol yow telle a tale which that I 
Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk, 
As preved by his wordes and his werk. 
He is now deed and nayled in his cheste, 
I prey to god so yeve his soule reste! 
Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poete, 
Highte this clerk. 

Chaucer's tale of Griselda is, indeed, only a close trans- 
lation of Petrarch's Fable of Ohedieace and Wifely 
Faitli^ which is in its turn a somewhat freer Latin ren- 
dering of the tenth novella of the tenth day in Boccac- 
cio's Decameron. Prefixed to Petrarch's rendering of 
the tale is a Latin letter to Boccaccio telling how the 
translation came to be made. Though Petrarch and 
Boccaccio were close friends, and though the Decameron 
had been written at least twenty years earlier, Petrarch 
seems not to have read it till a year or two before his 
death, which occurred in 1374. Even then Petrarch 
found the book too big to read through. He merely 
glanced over the greater part of it, reading carefidly 
only the introductory description of the plague and 



THE CLERK'S TALE 255 

the concluding tale of Griselda. The latter impressed 
him so deeply that he committed it to memory, and was 
in the habit of repeating it to his friends. Wishing to 
make it current among those who knew no Italian, he 
found leisure to turn it into Latin, retelling it in his 
own words, adding and changing a little here and there. 
That Chaucer used Petrarch's version rather than 
Boccaccio's original we know from the Clerk's explicit 
statement. Independently of that, a comparison of the 
three versions establishes the fact beyond shadow of 
doubt. Great as is Chaucer's debt to Boccaccio, we have 
no evidence that he ever read a line of the work on 
which Boccaccio's fame now chiefly rests. The problem 
of Boccaccio's sources for the tale is a puzzling one, and 
fortunately is of no immediate concern to the student 
of Chaucer. We may notice, however, that the tale is 
found in a collection of French Fabliavx, ou Contes 
du Xllle et clu Xlllle /Slecle, edited by Le Grand 
(1781). 1 

If the question of Chaucer's source for the Clerk's 
Tale is a simple one, very complicated is the question 
as to the exact way in which Petrarch's fable ^^^ 
reached him. The Clerk of Oxenford is made posed Meet. 
to say that he learned the tale at Padua from cifaucer 
the worthy clerk, Fraunceys Petrark ; and this ^nd 
has been taken to mean that Chaucer himself 
heard the story from Petrarch's lips. At first blush there 
is much to lend probability to this interpretation. Pe- 
trarch's version of the tale was made in 1373, while the 
'laureat poete ' was actually living at Arqua, a suburb 
of Padua ; and 1373 is the date of Chaucer's first visit 
to Italy. What more likely than that Chaucer should 
have sought out the chief man of letters in all Italy, 

^ An abstract of the fabliau is given in Originals and Analogues to 
Some o/Ohaucer's Canterbury Tales, pp. 527-5u7. 



256 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

and that Petrarch, who, we know, was in the habit of 
reciting the tale to his friends, should have entertained 
his guest with the fable of Griselda? If it is objected 
that Chaucer's version follows Petrarch's so closely that 
he must have had the Latin text before him as he wrote, 
it is plausibly suggested that Petrarch presented his 
visitor witli a manuscript of the tale as a parting gift. 
Professor Skeat is so sure of the interpretation that he 
insists that any one who doubts it must accuse Chaucer 
of deliberate falsehood. Chaucer's romantic biographer, 
Godwin, even tells us just how the two poets felt on 
meeting, and what each said to the other. 

Nevertheless, there have long been skeptics to doubt 
this pleasing theory. Professor Lounsbury, after call- 
ing attention to the fact that the Canterhury Tales is a 
dramatic composition, and that it is the Clerk of Oxen- 
ford and not Chaucer who says he learned the tale from 
Petrarch at Padua, sums up with the sentence : 'We 
can creditably and honestly try hard to think that the 
two poets met; but with the knowledge we at present 
possess, we have no right to assert it.' ^ Much as we 
should like to believe a story which appeals so strongly 
to our sense of what ought to have been, I fear that 
in view of recent investigations, even the cautious posi- 
tion of Professor Lounsbury is no longer tenable. Mr. 
F. J. Mather, after carefully investigating the exact 
date of Petrarch's composition of the fable, and the 
chronology of Chaucer's Italian journey, and looking 
into the conditions of traveling in the fourteenth 
century, has come to the following conclusions.^ For 
Petrarch's translation of the Griselda story ' any date in 
the early months of 1373 is possible, any date earlier 

^ Studies in Chaucer, 1. 68. 

2 ' On the asserted meeting of Chaucer and Petrarca,' Modern Lan- 

guaye Notes, 12. 1-11. 



THE CLERKS TALE 257 

than April is improbable.' The mission of which 
Chaucer was a member was sent primarily to conduct 
business at Genoa. Leaving England on December 1, 
1372, it could not have reached Genoa much before 
February 1, 1373.^ On reacliing Genoa, Chaucer was 
detached from his associates and sent on special busi- 
ness to Florence. Supposing that he made no stay in 
Genoa, he may have been in Florence about February 
10. He was apparently back in Genoa by March 23. 
The length of his possible stay in Florence is thus seen 
to be only a few weeks; and diplomatic business is usu- 
ally not very quickly dispatched. Moreover, a journey 
from Florence to Padua, easy enough in the day of rail- 
ways, was then to be accomplished only by a long and 
dangerous ride over mountain roads, still made diffi- 
cult by the winter's snow. It seems improbable that 
Chaucer made this wide detour, but if he did, he could 
not have been in Padua later than March 15, a date too 
early for the probable composition of Petrarch's Latin 
version. 

We cannot assert positively that Petrarch and Chaucer 
did not meet ; but in the absence of any positive evi- 
dence of their meeting, we must admit that the proba- 
bilities are strongly against it. As for Chaucer's actual 
possession of the tale, Mr. Mather has shown that it 
speedily became poj)ular, and that manuscripts of it 
were early multiplied. That Petrarch was dwelling near 
Padua, Chaucer might easily have learned without 
coming within two hundred miles of the place. 

^^'llat we shall think of the Clerk's Tale will be 
largely determined by what we think of the Griseida 
woman about whose personality the whole the Patient. 

1 An allowance of two months for the journey to Oenoa is probably 
excessive. On liis second Itali.-m voyinre of \'A1^, Chaucer was absent 
from Enirlaiid leis tli.an four mouths. Tlie second jouruev. however, waa 
made in the tiuminer, when traveling was doubtless easier. 



258 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

action centres. We are shown a young peasant-girl of 
blameless life, who is suddenly taken from her daily 
round of unremitting toil and frugal simplicity to be 
made first lady of a great domain. The sweet nobility 
of her character is raised far above the play of outward 
circumstance. She fills her new station as naturally and 
simply as she had tended sheep or turned her spinning- 
wheel ; she gives to her husband the same unfeigned, 
unstinted love and devotion that she had given to her 
old and feeble father. With a character such as this, 
and with great beauty of person as its fitting shrine, it 
is no wonder that Marquis Walter loved her, and that 
his people came to look upon her as the brightest star 
of all their land. A character which can stand sudden 
prosperity without receiving a flaw can also stand ad- 
versity. With unquestioning obedience she suffers her 
children to be snatched from her, and herself to be sup- 
planted by an unknown rival. The crowning instance 
of her wonderful patience is her prayer to Walter to 
spare his new-found lady: — 

' O tiling biscke I yow and warne also, 
That ye ne prikke with no tormentinge 
This tendre mayden, as ye han don mo; 
For she is fostred in hir norishinge 
More tendrely, and, to my supposinge, 
She coude nat adversitee endure 
As coude a povre fostred creature.' 

Here is no word of reproach ; though the reproach in- 
evitably implied is heavy enough. Notice the carefully 
guarded phrase, 'as ye han don mo,' where vio means 
not mie but more, 'as you have done to others.'^ 

^ Petrarch's Latin reads : ' Unum bona fide te precor ac moneo, ne 
hanc illis aculeis agites, quibus alteram ag-itasti.' Boccaccio is a little 
more definite : ' Ma qnanto posso vi prieg'o, clie quelle pnnture, le quali 
aJV ahra, che voxtra fn. g'ia deste, noii diate a qnesta.' (But I be^' tou 
with all my mig-ht that you give not to this woman tliose pricks which 
you gave to the other who was yours.) 



THE CLERK'S TALE 259 

What are we to think of this matchless patience? 
Most modern readers, particuhirly women readers, I 
suppose, will think it ridiculous, if not positively crim- 
inal. Imagine a convention of woman's rights advocates 
debating the conduct of Griselda ! ' Miserable, weak- 
spirited creature ! ' one hears them shriek. But those 
were the days when women still promised at the altar 
to obey their lords, and considered the promise as 
something more than a meaningless phrase. Moreover, 
Griselda was not only her husband's wife, but his subject 
as well ; and the obligation of the vassal to obey the 
lord was only less sacred than man's obligation to obey 
his God. Griselda merely lives up strictly to the letter 
and spirit of her obligation, and, one may add, to the 
letter and spirit of the command that we ' resist not 
evil,' a command which our modern world has agreed to 
ignore. But, some one exclaims, is not a woman's first 
duty to protect her offspring, and is not Griselda vir- 
tually an accomplice before the act to what she supposes 
to be the murder of her children ? A duty, doubtless, 
and a sacred one ; but by what authority do we call it 
her ' first duty ' ? Mothers have been known to urge 
their sons on to almost certain death in battle ; and the 
deed has been called one of noble patriotism. There is an 
old story, not yet quite forgotten, of a father who stood 
ready to sacrifice an only son, at what he believed to be 
the command of his God. He may have been mistaken; 
Griselda may have been mistaken ; perhaps we shall 
one day be so civilized that the Spartan mother will 
no longer be held up as a model. The question of pre- 
cedence in moral duties is a more troublesome one than 
any that has vexed the master of ceremonies at a court 
levee ; and each age must be left to settle the matter for 
itself. Griselda merely put in practice what all her 
contemporaries held in theory, Petrarch was a man of 



260 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

enlightened views, far in advance of his age ; yet it did 
not occur to him to question the Tightness of her conduct. 
He tells, in one of his letters, how he once gave the tale 
to a friend, and asked hiiu to read it aloud. The friend 
broke down in the middle of the reading, and could not 
continue for his tears. 1 am not arguing the question 
on its merits; I merely insist that he who would read 
the tale aright must imaginatively think himself into 
the spirit of a time long past, in which men held princi- 
ples quite other than ours, but in which, as in our own, 
there were found those who would answer unflinchingly 
to the stern voice of duty. Unquestioning obedience 
to duty is a quality too noble and too rare in any age to 
suffer us to question too nicely the occasion which calls 
it forth. The tale is, as Ten Brink calls it, ' the Song 
of Songs of true and tender womanhood.' 

Just what Chaucer himself thought of Griselda is 
not entirely clear to me. At the conclusion of the tale 
he makes the teller say : — 

This storie Is seyd, iiat for that wyves sholde 

Folvven Grisilde as in liuinilitee, 

For it were iinportahle, though they wolde; 

But for that every wiglit, in his degree, 

Sholde be constant in adversitee 

As was Grisikle. 

The difficulty of interpretation lies in the word ' importa- 
ble,' which means ' unbearable.' ^ Does it mean that such 
conduct would be unbearable to others, or that a woman 
who should strive to follow Griselda would be unable 
to bear the strain ? The context seems to me to favor 
the latter interpretation, in which case we shall conclude 
that Chaucer considered Griselda's humility entirely 
right, but for the majority of women an unattainable 
ideal. The roguish reference to the Wife of Bath, and 
^ Cf. Cantirbury Tales, B 3792 : ' His peynes weren importable.' 



THE CLERK'S TALE 261 

the liumorons envoy which follow are merely intended 
to restore the playful tone which Chaucer wished 
should dominate the Canterbury Tales. 

One dramatic problem of peculiar difficulty is pre- 
sented by the character of the Marquis, Griselda's 
husband. The plot of the story demands that ^^ 
he shall act with wanton cruelty, and cause his Marquis 
wife twelve years of needless sorrow. Yet it 
was not possible to paint him as a heartless villain ; for 
Griselda must not only obey him, but love him. This 
fundamental inconsistency cannot be removed; but 
the art of the story is shown in the extent to which it 
is concealed. 

The opening sections of the tale present him in a 
distinctly favorable light. He is young, handsome, and 
good-natured : — 

A fair persone, and strong, and yong of age, 
And fill of honour and of curteisye, 
Discreet ynogh his contree for to gye. 

All his people love him, both lords and commons. He 
has no vices ; in light-hearted carelessness he spends his 
time a-hawking and a-hunting. Though he was 

To speke as of linage, 
The gentilleste yborn of Lunibardye, 

he is quick to discern the true nobility of a peasant girl; 
and, far from entertaining any dishonorable designs 
upon her, is ready to make her his wife, and treat her 
as his equal. It is easy to see the grounds of his gen- 
eral poi)ularity. 

Yet, withal, there is an unlovely side to his nature; 
he is essentially selfish, a spoiled cliild. He neglects 
affairs of state, thinking only of his own pleasure. It 
is obviously his duty to marry and beget an heir; yet 
he prefers bachelor freedom, and has to be reminded 
of his duty by a delegation of his subjects. He is too 



262 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

good-natured to refuse the request; but willfully declines 
the offer of his lords to choose a fitting consort for him, 
and asserts his liberty of action by flying in the face of 
conventionality and wedding a peasant. There is surely 
as much of pride as of generosity in his action; and one 
is tempted, too, to think that he foresees less interfer- 
ence to his liberty from a wife who is his inferior. 

He has his way, weds Griselda, and is proud to find 
his eccentric choice justified by Griselda's popularity, 
and by her dignity in her new position. He is fond of 
her as a spoiled boy is fond of a favorite horse, and in 
mere pride of possession proceeds to put her through 
her paces. As the reckless horseman is not contented 
that his mare can take an ordinary hedge or ditch, but 
keeps trying her at harder barriers to test the limits 
of her excellence, so Walter devises still harder tests of 
his wife's patience and obedience. He does not mean to 
be cruel; he believes in his wife, and intends to set all 
right in the end ; he loves her after a selfish fashion. 
Even when all is over, he feels no particle of remorse ; he 
has restored to her her children and the incomparable 
blessing of his own love. But those twelve years ! 

THE MEECHANT's TALE 

Whatever Chaucer may have thought of Griselda as 
an ideal of womanhood, he was quite aware that actual 
realizations of the ideal are not over-numerous. The 
fabulous Chichevache, who feeds only on patient wives, 
is never in danger of a surfeit. Having depicted a wife 
of the type of Griselda, the poet restores the balance of 
actuality by telling, in the person of the Merchant, the 
not very edifying tale of January and May. 

As seen at the Tabard Inn, on the eve of the Canter- 
bury pilgrimage, no one would have suspected the skel- 
eton in the prosperous merchant's domestic closet. His 



THE MERCHANT'S TALE 203 

forked beard, liis Flemish beaver hat, liis 'botes clasped 
fairc and fctisly,' his self-satisfied manner of speech, — 

Souninge alway th'encrccs of liis winning, 
suggest no hidden tragedy. But he has listened with 
strange feelings to the Clerk's story of Griselda, who 
suffered twelve long years without a murmur. He, poor 
man, has been married but two months, — 

* And yet, I trowe, he that al his lyve 
Wyflees hath been, thongli that men wolde him ryve 
Unto the herte, ne coude in no manere 
Tellen so niuehel sorwe, as I now here 
Coude tellen of my wyves cursednesse I* 

The Host, it will be remembered, has some experience 
in conjugal infelicity, and readily enough gives the 
Merchant leave to tell his tale. 

The greater part of the Merchant'' s Talc is, as far as 
we know, Chaucer's original creation ; only the climax 
of the tale, the scene in the garden, where the 
blind husband recovers his sight just in time 
to witness his wife's infidelity, and is persuaded that all 
was done for his ov/n good, can be traced to an earlier 
original. The particular version of this ' pear-tree story ' 
which Chaucer used is not known tons; but several 
analogous tales, European and Oriental, are given in 
the Chaucer Society's volume of Originals and Ana- 
lof/ues,^ which may be read and compared by those who 
think it worth while to trace the genesis of a tale which 
was hardly worth telling. in the first place. Of these 
analogues, the best known is the ninth novella of the 
seventh day in Boccaccio's Decameron. This, though 
obviously a related tale, differs materially from the ver- 
sion Chaucer nuist have followed, the element of the 
husband's blindness being entirely lacking. Even in 
the portion of the tale which is borrowed, Chaucer's 
1 Pp. 177-188, 341-3G4. 



I. 



264 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

originality mayl)C seen. As Tyrwhitt says: '"^A^'Latcver 
was the real origin of this tale, the machinery of the 
faeries -which Chaucer has used so happily, was probahly 
added by himself; and indeed, I cannot helji thinking 
that his Pluto and Proserpina were the true progenitors 
of Oberon and Titania, or rather, that they themselves 
have, once at least, deigned to revisit our poetical sys- 
tem under the latter names.' 

Chaucer's tale has been retold by Pope under the title 
of January and May} 

Whatever one may think of the merits of the Mer- 
chants Tale, it will not do to dismiss it, tin does a recent 
The Taio Writer on Chaucer, as a mere ' tale of harlotry ; * 
Itself for the poet's chief interest in the story cen- 

tres not in its adulterous denoiicmc7it, but in the 
humorous character-sketch of old January. The doting 
gray-beard has spent his godless life in unbridled 
wantonness ; and now that he is sixty years and more, 
and the spark of desire is burning low, he decides that 
the comfort and happiness of his declining years, and 
incidentally the salvation of his soul, will be furthered 
by a tardy entrance into ' that holy bond with \Yhich that 
first God man and womraan bond.' Only a young and 
beautiful wife will answer the purpose ; and with such 
a one old January foresees a life of unmixed bliss: — 

For wedlok is so esy and so clene, 
That in this world it is a paradys. 

The sage counsels of Justinus, who urges objections 
manifold, avail as much as good advice usually avails a 
man who is already decided : — 

For whan that he himself conchuled haddc, 
Him thoughte cch other inannes wit so badde, 

* For a comparison of Pope's version with the original, see the article 
by A. Schade, in Englische Studien, 25. 1-130, 20. 161-228. 



THE MERCHANT'S TALE 2G5 

o 

That inpossible it were to ropljrc 
Agayn his chois, this was his fantasyc. 

The sycophant, Placebo, who is clever enough to argue 
on the popular side, bears away the palm for wisdom. 
Exceedingly delicate is the irony with which Chaucer 
manages this debate, and proclaims the unending ha])- 
piness of the married state, while making it quite appar- 
ent all the while that for January the roseate vision is 
to be but mockery. So plausible is the sarcastic praise 
of marriage that the passage beginning : — 

For who can be so buxom as a wyf ? 
Who is so trowe, and eek so ententyf 
To kepe hira, syk and hool, as is bis make ? 

has actually been quoted, in all seriousness, to show 
Chaucer's ' perception of a sacred bond, spiritual and 
indestructible, in true marriage between man and 
woman ' ! * 

Foredoomed inevitably to failure, this senseless 
union of ' crabbed age and youth ' is rendered 3'et more 
absurd by the elaborate marriage-feast, which Chaucer, 
contrary to his usual custom, has described at length, 
but described with an irony all the more biting because 
of its apparent good faith : — 

Whan tendre youtbe hath wedded stouping age, 
Ther is swich mirthe that it may nat be writen. 

When, in the sequel, the entirely natural happens, 
and ' faire fresshe May ' plays false with her marriage 
vows, she carries our sympathies with her. Not that 
we approve of her conduct exactly, but our attention is 
diverted from the merely lascivious in the tale, and from 
the moral questions involved, to the eminent poetic jus- 
tice of old January's cuckoldom. An immoral tale is 
made to subserve a sort of crude morality. 

^ The Prologue, KniqhCs Tale, etc., edited by Richard Morris, Oxford, 
1895, p. xvUi, and Morloy, English Writers, 2. 135, 25G, 280. 



266 THE rOETRY OF CHAUCER 

Even when tlic faithless wife occupies the centre of 
attention, it is the cleverness of her intrigue, and the 
sublime audacity of her inspired self-vindication, rather 
than her sensual desires which interest us ; while the deli- 
cate conceit of an overruling providence in the persons 
of Pluto and Proserpine, king and queen of faery, who 
sagely debate the wisdom of King Solomon and of Jesus 
jilius Syruh, relieves the essential coarseness of the tale. 
Even in the realm of faery, a wife will have her way : 
Pluto may espouse the cause of the injured husband, 
but the queen knows a subtler magic than his- own. 

It would have been easy, had Chaucer so wished, to 
give the tale a tragic ending ; but it is conceived from 
beginning to end in the spirit of a ' humor ' comedy of 
Ben Jonson. The tragedy is there, to be sure, but it is 
concealed so successfully from its victim that ho ends 
his days, for aught we know, in the paradise of fools 
whose bliss is their ignorance. 

' The Merchant's Talc was written when Chaucer was 
at the height of his power, after he had already 
achieved one masterpiece of the same general character 
in the Wife of Bath's Prologue.' Immoral the tale' 
certainly is ; but its immorality is not insidious, and | 
the spirit of broad comedy which pervades the piece is | 
all but sufficient to sweeten the unwholesomeness of it. 

THE squire's tale * r '. '- ^ 

^hen Milton in II Penseroso wished to summon 
up the memory of Chaucer, he did so by an allusion to 
the Squire's Tale : — 

Or call up him that left half-told 
The story of Camhusean bold, 
Of Cainball, and of Algarslfc, 

» That the Merchant's Tale is later than the Wife of Bath's Prologue 
is shown by the direct allusion to the latter at line 1085. 



THE SQUIRE'S TALE 267 

And who had Canace to wife, 
That owned the virtuous ring and glass, 
And of the wondrous horse of brass 
On which the Tartar King did ride. 

Another of England's greater poets, the author of the 
Faerie Queeiie, took upon himself the task of complet- 
ing the half-told story, after addressing ' Dan Chaucer ' 
in terms of deepest reverence and love.^ A lesser poet, 
Leigh Hunt, who made a modernization of the Square's 
Tale, entertained the idea of writing a conclusion to it, 
but wisely refrained." The critic, Warton, placed the 
tale next after that of the Knight as ' written in the 
higher strain of poetry.' 

A considerable part of the attention which this tale 
has received is due, I fancy, to the very fact that it 
was left half told. I am inclined to suspect that Chau- 
cer abandoned the work because he did not know how 
to conclude it ; and if this is so, any attempt on our 
part to guess its conclusion must be futile. The Tar- 
tar King is provided with a wondrous horse of brass, on 
which he can fly ' as hye in the air as doth an egle,' 
and in the space of four and twenty hours arrive in 
whatsoever land he will. To his daughter, Canace, is 
given a magic ring, whose virtue is such that with it 
on her finger she shall understand the voices of all 
the birds of heaven and converse with them in their 
own tongue, and a mirror in which all the deeds of 
men are revealed as if face to face. There is a magic 
sword, too, which will pierce the strongest armor, and 
like Achilles' spear ' is able with the change to kill and 
cure.' In the second part, Canace, by virtue of her 

' Faerie Queene, Book 4, Cantos 2 and 3. 

^ S(!e Lonnsbury, Studies in Chaucer, .'J. 211-212. One John Lane, a 
friend of Milton's f.-ither, produced in 10150 a long' continuation of the 
tale, wlilch has been published by the Chaucer Society, It is miserable 
nouseusa. 



268 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER i 

ring, learns a tale of unhap])y love from a falcon, who 
is, we must suppose, some princess laboring under an 
enchanter's spell. There are great wars toward. With 
such a beginning, what is not possible ? The imagina- 
tion roams through limitless fields of pleasing conjec- 
ture. The very name of magic has its fascination for 
our poor race of mortals, shut in as we are by the 
relentless barrier of the possible and the actual. Any 
conclusion which Chaucer, or any other poet, could 
have written would be barren and commonplace com- 
pared with our vague imaginings. And this is inevit- 
able in the very nature of the case. Let the magic 
horse, the ring, the sword, and mirror be put to practi- 
cal use, let their use result in any definite achievements 
or events, and they are immediately vulgarized. Onco 
more the tyranny of the actual, if not the possible, 
shuts us in ; and the boundless scope of the imagina- 
tion is narrowed to nothing. An exactly similar case is 
presented by Coleridge's wonderful fragment, Kvhla 
Khan, which deals, be it noticed, with the same Ori- 
ental dynasty as Chaucer's tale, Kubla Khan being a 
grandson of Gengis Khan, whose name becomes the 
Cambinskan of Chaucer. This poem is unfinished for 
the good retison that it could not be finished ; it is essen- 
tially a fragment ; and so great is Coleridge's art that 
the fragment may be said to constitute a distinct lit- 
erary form. Much might be said of the beauty of the 
incomplete, of the desirability of leaving things half 
finished. The beauty of a spring day is in lai'ge mea- 
sure the promise of summer days to come, which, when 
they come, fall often below our expectation. The un- 
equaled charm of a noble youth rests on the unlimited 
possibility of noble action which lies before him. The 
early death of Keats has served to magnify fourfold 
the estimate set upon his work. AVe have no proof 



THE SQUIRE'S TALE 269 

that lio would ever have surpassed the actual achieve- 
ments he has left to us. Indeed, there are indications 
that he would not have done so. Yet such is the power 
of the incomplete, that we hear critics speak of him as 
one who might have been a second Shakespeare. Or, to 
take an example from what might have been, su])pos0 
that Milton had been cut off after he had completed, 
only the first two books of Paradise Lost. What 
should we not have expected of the ten remaining 
books of a poem which opens so magnificently ? But 
we have the poem entire, and know that the level of 
the first two books was higher than Llilton could con- 
sistently maintain. The more one considers the keen- 
ness of Chaucer's critical insight and the strange 
'elvishness' of his character, the more strongly one sus- 
pects that Chaucer recognized this power of the incom- 
plete, and deliberately left his tale half told. 

In no case has Chaucer more happily suited the tale to 
the character of the teller than in the case of the Squire. 
As the Knight, his father, tells a noble tale of tour- 
nament and knightly love, so his son, the Squii-e, turns 
naturally to a theme of chivalry. But there is a differ- 
ence. Warton says that ' the imagination of this story 
consists in Arabian fiction engrafted on Gothic chivalry.' 
It is in the days of our youth that the fiction of the Ara- 
bian Kights appeals most strongly to us. Before the 
' shadows of our prison house ' close about us, we are 
all impatient of the actual, and dream of the infinite 
possibilities that might follow on the impossible. The 
Knight has lived his life and worked his work, and so 
his story, however ideal in its spirit, is of things accom- 
plished, of deeds already done. The Squire, though 

He had been somtyme in chivachye, 
In Flaiindres, in Artoys, and Picardye, 
And boru him wel, as of so litel space, 



270 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

is living mainly in the infinite future, where all things 
are possible. All that his father has accomplished is 
as nothing beside what he intends to do. His charm, 
like that of the tale he tells, is in large measure the 
charm of incompleteness. 

There is hardly a feature of the Squire's Tale which 

does not find its parallel in the Oriental literature of 

magic. A reader whose acquaintance with this 

Sources. ,. . n ^ ^ A 1 • t»T' 7 

literature is confined to the Arabian JSights 
will find such parallels in abundance.* But no single 
narrative which Chaucer might have used has yet been 
discovered. Whether any such narrative existed, or 
whether Chaucer merely allowed his imagination to play 
freely with the familiar themes of Arabian magic, fill- 
ing in his background with such scraps of knowledge 
about Tartary and the Far East as he had picked up in 
reading or conversation, we cannot say. The general 
character of the tale, and in particular its unfinished 
state, would favor the latter theory. 

Professor Skeat tried hard to prove that Chaucer's 
acquaintance with Gengis Khan, and with such features 
of local color as his story presents, was derived from 
the famous book of the travels of Marco Polo ; but this 
theory has been shown to be absolutely without foun- 
dation .^ Such are Chaucer's mistakes and confusions 
that it is hard to believe that he could have had any 
connected account of the Tartars before him.^ 

^ The whole subject has been investigated with prreat thoroughness 
by Mr. W. A. Clouston, in an article entitled On the Magical Elements in 
Chaucer^s Squire's Tale, appended to the Chaucer Society's edition of 
John Lane's continuation of the Squire's Tale. 

'^ J. M. Manley. ' Marco Polo and the Squire's Tale,' Publications of 
the Modern Language Association of America, 11. 349-362. 

^ Perhaps this is the best place to notice another exploded theory, 
that of Professor Brandl, who with characteristic German ingenuity 
has found in the Squire's Tale an elabornte allegory of the English 
court, Cambinskan representing Edward III, and Canace liis daughter- 



THE FRANKLIN'S TALE 271 

THE franklin's TALE 

The portrait of the Franklin in the General Prologue, 
though an attractive one, hardly does full justice to this 
' wortliy vavasour.' We are shown a prosperous coun- 
try land-holder, a man of sixty or over, we may suppose, 
with beard as white as the daisies which stud his spa- 
cious meadows, and with countenance as ruddy as the 
wine which lies in his well-stocked cellar. It takes no 
extraordinary power of clairvoyance to know that his 
table must be loaded with ' alle deyntees that men coude 
thinke,' while the general kindliness and good-nature of 
his bearing tell us that there is always room at his board 
for another guest. We like the good man, and should 
be glad enough to receive an invitation to spend a week- 
end in a house where it ' snows meat and drink.' But 
we dismiss him from our thought as ' Epicurus owne 
sone ' for his good living, and as the Saint Julian of his 
country for generous hospitality. It is only after we 
have traveled a day or two with him on the Canterbury 
road, and heard him tell his noble tale, that we see more 
intimately into his life and aspirations. 

The Franklin has much in common with the better 
type of the 'self-made man.' He has at his disposal all 
that money can buy, and he has held office in his own 
county ; but he is uncomfortably conscious of a certain { 
lack of 'gentility,' — betrayed by his fondness for the ] 
words ' gentil ' and ' gentilesse,' — and of the full edu- ' 
cation which would adorn his prosperous estate. 

' But, sires, bycause I am a burel man, 
At my biginning first I yow biseclie 
Have me excused of my rude speche ; 
I learned never rethoryk certeyn.' 

in-law Constance, second wife of John of Gaunt (Englische Studien, 
12. 161). This fanciful theory has been demolished by Professor Kit- 
tredge, in Englische Studien, 13. 1-25. 



272 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

That he has made up in some way or other for the lack 
of early advantages, is showu by the excellence of his 
tale, and by the more or less learned discussions which 
he rather needlessly introduces, such as the historical- 
mythological catalogue of women who died rather than 
sully their honor, which occupies lines 1366-1450. His 
enlightened views and sound good sense are showu in 
the opinion he expresses of astrology : — 
And swicli folye, 
As in our dayes is nat worth a flye. 

Once he indulges in one of the figures of rhetoric of 

which he has professed his ignorance: — 
But sodeinly bigonne revel newe 
Til that the brighte souue loste his hewe ; 
For th'orisonte hath reft the sonne his light ; 

but his good sense and native honesty bring him down 
to earth again in the line which follows: — 
This is as inuche to seye as it was night. 
Conscious that, with all that he has acquired and at- 
tained, he can never be quite the complete gentleman, he 
would fain be the father of a gentleman; but his hopes 
are disappointed by the unfortunate vulgar procliv- 
ities of his son and heir. To the gallant young squire he 
says : — 

' I have a sone, and, by the Trinitee, 
I hadde lever than twenty pound worth lond, 
Though it right now were fallen in inyn bond, 
He were a man of swich discrecioun 
As that ye been ! fy on possessioun 
But-if a man be vertuous withal. 
I have my sone snibbed, and yet shal, 
For he to vertu listeth nat entende; 
But for to pleye at dees, and to despende, 
Aud lese al that he hath, is his usage. 
And he hath lever talken with a page 
Than to commune with any gentil wight 
Ther he mighte ierne gentillesse aright.* 



THE FRANKLIN'S TALE 273 

So might a Toledo oil-magnate bewail the vicious tend- 
encies of the son whom he is lavishly maintaining at 
Yale or Harvard. Considering this, there is something 
of pathos as well as fine generosity, in the enthusi- 
.istic praise which the Franklin bestows on the Squire 
for his noble tale, which we, alas ! can never hear to its 
end : — 

' In feith, Squier, thou hast thee wel yquit, 
And gentilly; I preise wel thy wit.' 

This outburst of praise calls the Host's attention 
to the Franklin; and, though he disposes of the good 
man's most cherished aspiration with a contemptuous 
* straw for your gentillesse ! ' he nevertheless singles 
him out as the teller of the next tale. 

Were it not that in other instances we find Chaucer 
assigning a fanciful, rather than the actual, source for 
his compositions, the opening lines of the 
Franklin s Tale would seem sufficient evi- 
dence that its source was a courtl}'^ Breton lay, such as 
those that have come down to us in French dress from 
the hand of Marie de France. 

Thise olde gentil Britons in hir dayes 
Of diverse aventnres maden layes, 
Rymeyed in hir firste Briton tonge; 
Which layes with hir instruments they songe, 
Or elles redden hem for hir plesannce; 
And oon of hem have I in remembraunce, 
Which I shal seyn with good wil as I can. 

But no such lay has been preserved to us.* Tales similar 

^ Dr. W. H. Schofield has attempted to prove from an account of a 
Briton chieftain, Arvir.apiis. in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia, that 
such a legend actually existed in South Wales, whence it was carried 
to Brittany, and written up, perhaps with accretions from another source 
ultimately Oriental, by a poet of the school of Marie de France. (Publi- 
cations of the Modern Language Association of America, 10. 40.")-44t).) 
The arR'ument is in£;'enious, and one would be glad to accept it ; but it 
consists of hypotheses rather than of evidouce. An elaborate refutation 



274 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

to that of the Franklin have been found in Sanskrit, Bur- 
mese, Persian, and other Oriental tongues ; and a still 
closer parallel is offered in a tale told by Boccaccio in his 
early prose work the Filocolo^ and again, with slight va- 
riations, in the Decameron^ Day 10, Nov. 5.* In Boccac- 
cio's version, a faithful wife promises an importunate 
lover, of whom she wishes to be rid, that she will give 
him her love, if he can make a garden bloom and bear 
fruit in mid-January. The lover accomplishes this by 
the help of a magician ; and the story concludes as does 
the Franklin's. Of the two parallel tales of Boccaccio, 
that in the FUocolo is somewhat nearer to Chaucer's; 
and it is possible that Chaucer may have drawn his 
material thence, changing the scene to Brittany, alter- 
ing the names in accordance with this change, and con- 
siderably modifying the story itself ; but it is more 
probable that his source was a French yaJ/iaw, closely 
related to the source whence Boccaccio's tale was drawn. 
The fact that the scene was laid in Brittany would be 
sufficient to explain the fanciful attribution to a Breton 
lai. The history of the tale, as it traveled from the dis- 
tant east to Chaucer's study, was probably similar to 
that of the story which we have in tlie Pardoner's 
Tale? It is interesting to notice that Beaumont and 
Fletcher have utilized the plot of the Frankliri s Tale 
for a one-act play entitled TJie Triumph of Honour. 
The chief beauty of this tale resides in the noble 

of Dr. Schofield's contention is g-iven by P. Rajna in Romania, 32. 204- 
267. (' Le Origini della Novella narrata dal Frankeleyn nei Canterbury 
Tales del Chaucer.') 

^ The story also appears in the twelfth canto of Boiardo's Orlando 
Innamorato. See Originals and Analogues to Some of Chaucer'' s Canterbury 
Talcs, pp. 280-340, where several Oriental versions and the Decameron 
novella are given in translation. For the relation of Chaucer's ver.sion 
to Boccaccio's, see the article by P. Rajna, in Romania, 32, 204-267. 
Rajna's conclusions in this matter the present writer cannot accept. 

2 Cf. above, p. 224. 



THE FRANKLIN'S TALE 275 

spirit which pervades it. The unswerving fidelity of 
Dorigen, who cannot make merry when her husband is 
overseas, and who unhesitatingly rejects the Literary 
advances of her lover Aurelius ; the utmost Qualities, 
loyalty to the spoken pledge, which impels Arviragus 
to send his wife to keep a promise, though spoken in 
jest — are so potent in their power for good that not 
only the passionate lover, but the poor scholar in far- 
off Orleans, are compelled to an equal nobility. Ten 
Brink says of the poem : 'The contagious influence of 
good, proceeding from a conunon as well as from a 
noble disposition, and the wondrous power of love, are 
beautifully symbolized in this fable. And throughout 
all his story Chaucer gives special prominence to the 
idea by which the whole receives its internal comple- 
tion, viz., the idea that love and force mutually exclude 
each other, while patience and forbearance belong to 
the very essence of love.'* 

Beautiful as is this picture of married love, Chaucer 
has taken care that it shall not become sentimental, by 
touching it here and therewith his own peculiar humor. 
Thus with sly ambiguity he asks, after describing the 
bliss of Arviragus and Dorigen, — 

Who coude telle, but he had wedded be, 
The joye, the ese, and the prosperitee 
That is betwixe an housbonde and his wyf ? 

And again in describing the grief of Dorigen at her 
husband's departure for Britain : — 

For his absence wepeth she and syketh, 
As doon thise noble wyves whan hem lykelh. 

After giving us the passionate 'complaint' uttered by 
Aurelius in his love-longing, there is on the author's 
part a playful assurance of his own unconcern : — 

' History of English Literature (English trans.), 2. 169. 



276 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Dispeyred in this torment and this thoght 

Lete I this wofiil creature lye ; 

Chese he, for me, whether he wol live or dye. 

The poem ends in the manner of the dehat literature 
so popuhir in mediieval France, with a question addressed 
to the judicious reader, or rather to the members of the 
pilgrimage : — 

Lordinges, this question wolde I aske now, 
Which was the moste free, as thinketh yow? 

Which of the three — Arviragus, who sacrifices his wife 
to liis sense of honor. Aurelins, who foregoes his coveted 
opportunity, or the clerk of Orleans, who in remitting his 
promised fee, showed that he too ' coude doon a gentil 
dede ' • — shows the greatest freedom, i.e., generosity? 
One would be glad to hear the discussion which must have 
arisen among the company when this question was pro- 
pounded ; but one of the several gaps in the unfinished 
framework of the Canterhury Tales follows the Frank- 
lin^ s Tale, and the reader is left to imagine the debate, 
and to settle the burning question by himself. In at- 
tempting the question, one must decide whether or not 
the terrible sacrifice of Arviragiis was necessary, or even 
justifiable. Probably most modern readers will decide 
that it was neither. A jesting promise is made on con- 
dition that the seemingly impossible be performed. By 
calling in the aid of magic, the condition is fulfilled. 
Surely it is a hyperquixotic sense of honor which shall 
insist on the fulfillment of a pledge so circumstanced. 
But the Middle Age apparently admired such extreme 
conceptions of honor, ^ and I, for one, am not willing 
to say that they were wrong. It would not hurt our 
modern world to be a little more quixotic in its sense 
of honor. I am quite ready to grant that in this in- 

^ Cf. The tale of Nathan and MlthriJanes, in Boccaccio's Decam- 
eron, Day 10, Nov. o. 



THE SECOND NUN'S TALE 277 

stance Arviragns was mistaken, that truth did not de- 
nuuul the sacrifice ; even, if you will, that the sacrifice 
should not have been made; and yet his act is none the 
less a noble act. I cannot see that its spirit is very 
different from the spirit of the equally quixotic cora- 
niiuid, ' If any man will sue thee at the law, and take 
away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also.' In the 
event, at least, Arviragus is justified ; his noble deed 
begets nobility in others ; and we are shown once more 
that it is indeed possible to overcome evil with good. 

THE SECOND NUN'S TALE 
Of the Second Nun, to whom the manuscript rubrica 
assign the legend of St. Cecilia, we know nothing be- 
yond the mere fact of her presence in the pilgrim-com- 
pany as attendant on the Prioress. At the end of the 
description of Madam Eglantine in the General Pro- 
logue we read : — 

Another Noiine with hir hadde she, 
That was hir chapele^'iie. 

Chaucer has provided no introductory prologue to the 
tale itself to inform us further of the good lady's per- 
sonality, nor of the circumstance of her narration. The 
appropriateness of tale to teller is, however, obvious 
at a glance. Like the tale of the Prioress, the story 
breathes that spirit of peculiar religious exaltation 
which we associate with all that is most beautiful in the 
monastic life. 

That the legend of St, Cecilia was not originally in- 
tended for its present place as one of the Canterbury 
Tales might be shown from the internal evi- Date of 
dence of the tale itself. In open contradic- Composition, 
tion to the idea of oral narration on the pilgrimage is 
; line 78 : — 

Yet preye I yow that reden that I wryte. 



278 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

Equally inconsistent is line 62, in which the speaker 
refers to herself as ' unworthy sonc of Eve.' We have, 
however, a piece of external evidence on the question 
which is even more convincing. In the Legend of 
Good Women Dan Cupid says of the poet : — 

He hath in prose translated Boece, 
And mad the Lyf also of seynt Cecyle. 

This evidence taken together may be held to prove 
that the tale was written before 1385, and was not 
revised for its present position. 

That the legend was written after Chaucer's Italian 
journey of 1373 is rendered probable by the fact that 
lines 36-51 are translated from the last canto of Dante's 
Paradiso. From its general stylistic qualities, and in 
particular from the closeness with which it follows its 
original, critics have been inclined to ascribe it, with 
Ten Brink, to the very beginning of Chaucer's so-called 
Italian period, that is, to the years 1373-74. Proba- 
bility favors this ascription ; but it must be remem- 
bered that we have no positive evidence in its suj^port.^ 
The source of the Second JVun's Tale is suggested 
by the rubric which precedes line 85 : Tnterpretacio 
nominis Cecilie, quam j^onit f rater lacohus 
lanuensis in Legenda Aurea. This Jacobus 
Januensis, better known as Jacobus a Voragine, was a 
Dominican friar, who in 1292 was consecrated arch- 
bishop of Genoa ; and his Golden Legend, ' a collec- 
tion of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the 
mediffival church,' was one of the most popular books 
of the Middle Ages. Professor Koelbing has shown, 
however, that Chaucer's original was a Latin life of 
St. Cecilia, which, though closely related to thai in the 
Golden Legend, is in some particulars nearer to the 

^ Dr. Koeppel, in Anglia, 14. 227-233, favors a date later than that 
of Troilus and Criseyde. 



THE SECOND NUN'S TALE 279 

life of the saint written by Simeon Metaphrastes,* 
printed in a collection of saints' lives by Aloysius 
Lipomanus, Louvain, 1571. There is no proof that 
Chaucer used the French translation of the Golden 
Legend by Jehan de Vignay, nor any of the earlier 
English accounts of St. Cecilia.^ 

Though we do not possess Chaucer's exact original, 
we know from the extant Latin versions, from which it 
probably differed only in minute details, that his trans- 
lation is exceedingly literal. The following extract 
from the version of Meta])hraste8 may be compared with 
Chaucer's corresponding lines : ' Dixit Almacius prse- 
fectus : Elige tu unum ex duobus, aut sacrifica aut 
nega te esse cristianam, ut delicti tibi detur venia. 
Tunc dixit ridens sancta Caecilia : O judicem pudore 
necessario affectum ! Vult me negare et esse me inno- 
centem, ut ipse me faciat crimini obnoxiam.' ^ 

In Chaucer's English this becomes : — 

Almache answerde, ' cbees oou of thise two, 
Do sacrifyce, or Cristendom relieve, 
That thou inowe now escapen by that weye.' 
At which the holy blisful fayre niayde 
Gan for to laughe, and to the juge seyde, 
*0 jiige, confiis in thy nycetee, 
Woltow that I reneye innocence, 
To make me a wikked wight ? ' quod she. 

This passage is typical of Chaucer's procedure through- 
out, so that we may agree with Professor Koelbing's 
assertion that ' apart from the charming versification, 
which seems splendidly suited to the subject, Chaucer's 
proprietorship in the composition consists only in single 
words or half lines, which he used to fill out his verse.' 
Any criticism of the tale, then, must be a criticism of 

1 Engliscke Studien, 1. 2l.">-24S. 

' See Originals and Analogues, pp. 189-219. 

8 From Koelbing's article cited above, p. 223. 



280 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

the original saint's legend rather than of Chaucer. It 
is a story of a type to which our modern world is 
The Tale inclined to do small justice. Full as it is of 
Itself. ^j^g supernatural and the impossible, it lends 

itself readily enough to the laugh of the mocker ; 
while even the human motives of the saintly heroine 
are far from the comprehension of to-day. Yet for its 
pathos, its noble spirit of high religion, above all for 
the irresistible force of Cecilia's sweet personality, the 
tale may still be read and loved by all whose hearts are 
not completely hardened. Chaucer, apparently, took 
the tale quite seriously ; the genuineness of its religious 
feeling cannot be questioned. So that his deliberate 
choice of theme, not in the first place for the Second 
Nun, but for himself, is a valuable piece of testimony 
as to his deeper and more serious life. 

Of the historical Cecilia little is known beyond what 
can be inferred from the developed legend. Her mar- 
tyrdom is usually assigned to the reign of the Emperor 
Alexander Severus (a. d. 222-235) ; but even this is 
not certain. St. Cecilia's present fame as patroness of 
music and inventor of the organ is a later develop- 
ment, of which Chaucer probably never heard. The 
Cecilia of the legend sang to God in her heart ' whyl 
the organs maden melodye,' and she received an angel 
visitant ; but the two facts are unconnected, and the 
mention of the organ is only a passing one. 

THE canon's yeoman's TALE 
When the Second Nun has finished her tale of St. 
Cecilia, and the company have reached the little village 
of Boghton under Blee, they are joined by two new- 
comers, the Canon and his Yeoman, who have ridden 
furiously to overtake them, fearing perhaps to travel 
alone through the robber-haunted Forest of Blean. 



THE CANON'S YEOMAN'S TALE 281 

The black-clothed Canon speaks but little ; but his 
silence is more than atoned for by the garrulous lo- 
quacity of his Yeoman. Little by little it transpires 
that the Canon is a practicer of alchemy. The Yeoman 
will not be silenced : — 

And whan this chanon saugh it wolde nat be, 

But his yeinan wolde telle his privetee, 

He fledde awey for verray sorwe and shame. 

Chaucer had little, if any, of the reformer's spirit 
in his make-up ; but with his temperamental tendency 
to see the comic in human life, he had a keen interest 
in hypocrisy and clever imposture, an interest which 
at times almost extends to an intellectual admiration. 
With lively intellectual interest, but with no trace of 
bitterness, he shows up the lying devices of his Par- 
doner. With less detail, but with rich humor. Clerk 
Nicholas in the Miller's Tale is made to exemplify the 
tricks of the false astrologer. The Canoiis Yeoman's 
Tale is a complete expose of alchemy made by one of 
its victims, and consequently made with a personal bit- 
terness that has led many critics to the unwarranted 
supposition that Chaucer himself had fallen prey to the 
im])osture. Chaucer may have believed, as did all the 
most learned of his time, in the theoretical possibility 
of transmuting the baser metals into gold. The fullness 
and accuracy of his acquaintance with the subject, as 
shown in the tale itself, prove that his intellectual 
curiosity had led him to explore the mysteries of the 
science. Even the Canon's Yeoman^s Tale itself in- 
dicates no active disbelief in the theory of alchemy. 
But his sound common sense told him that in actual 
experience the search for the philoso})her's stone had 
been but a pursuit of will-o'-the-wisp, when it had not 
been downright fraud and imposture. We can be sure, 
I think, that the only use Chaucer made of alchemy was 



282 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

in transmuting the base metal of human greed and folly 
into the finer gold of humor. The bitterness of the 
Canon s Yeoman's Tale is the dramatic indignation 
of the Yeoman, who at last discovers that he has been 
made a gull. Needless to say, it gives the highest real- 
ism and color to the tale. 

When his master takes to flight, and the Yeoman 
finds himself free of the incubus that has for seven long 
years possessed him, robbing him of money and of 
health, his pent-up scorn finds vent in a long rambling 
exposition of alchemical mysteries. He has learned his 
lesson well ; and the ' terms ' of the ' elvish craft,' ' so 
clergial and so qaeynte,' flow freely from his loosened 
tongue. There is no order in his speech ; and the 
majority of his terms are, of course, meaningless to 
us. The total effect is one of bewildering confusion, 
precisely the effect which Chaucer wished to produce. 
Deliciously humorous is his description of the sudden 
bursting of the pot which contained the mixture which 
was to bi'ing great wealth. Some said this, and some 
said that, but the bitter fact remained that months of 
labor had gone for nothing. 

The first part of the tale deals with the futile at- 
tempts of serious alchemy, in which the deceivers are 
themselves deceived, and all alike share in the common 
failure. The second part, which is the more interest- 
ing, tells of the clever trick of legerdemain by which 
another canon, less scrupulous than the one we have 
met, convinces a gullible priest that he actually pos- 
sesses the elixir, and disposes of his worthless receipt 
for the considerable sum of forty pounds. 

No source for tlie tale is known, and probably none 
is to be sought. Very likely the anecdote of the second 
part is founded on an actual occurrence. A trick closely 
similar to this was actually perpetrated in New York 



I 



THE MANCIPLE'S TALE 283 



in the summer of 1890.* After all, the chief interest 
of the tale lies not so much in its substance as in the 
personality of the Yeoman who relates it. 

THE manciple's TALE 

The journey to Canterbury is nearly ended, and 
already the company is in sight of a little town, — 

Wliich that ycleped is Bob-up-and-doun, 
Under the Blee, in Caunterbury weye. 

Meanwhile honest Hodge of Ware, the Cook of Lon- 
don, has been taking advantage of his vacation days to 
sample the wine or ale of every wayside tavern, until he 
has got himself disgracefully drunk. He talks through 
his nose, breathes heavily, and finally falls from his 
horse into the mire, whence he is raised into the saddle 
again only after much shoving and lifting. Obviously, 
he is in no condition to tell the tale which mine Host 
demands of him ; so that the Manciple's ready offer to 
serve in his stead is gladly accepted. On the first day 
of the pilgrimage, it will be remembered, the Cook had 
been called on for a tale, and had responded with the 
story of Perkin Revelour, which Chaucer left unfin- 
ished after the fifty -eighth line. That he should be 
called on a second time is pi-oof that, when the Man- 
ciple's Prologue was written, Chaucer had not aban- 
doned his original plan, as announced in tlie General 
Prologue, that each of the ])ilgi-ims should tell turn 
tales on the road to Canterbury, and other two on the 
journey home. 

The tale which the Manciple tells is a short and sim- 
ple one, and needs no long exposition here. It is merely 

^ See Dr. C. M. Hatbaway's edition of Ben Jonson's Alcheiniat, New 
York, V.KY-j, pp. 87, 88. The introduction of this vohime contains an 
interesting^ liistory of alchemy, its theory and practice, down to the 
prtwent day. 



284 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

a clever retelling of the fable of Apollo and Coronis 
in Ovid's Metamorphoses^ 2. 531-632. Chaucer has 
somewhat simplified the tale, and has added some moral 
reflections on the futility of trying to restrain a wife, 
and on the undesirability of repeating scandal, the latter 
taken from Albertano of Brescia's treatise on the Art 
of Speaking and of Keeping Silence.^ The same tale is 
told byGower in (7o??/essio-4ma?i^is, 3. 783-830. Mr. 
Clouston has shown ^ that the tale is ultimately of Ori- 
ental origin, and that a version of the story, independent 
of that given by Ovid, was brought to Eui-ope in the 
Middle Ages, and incorporated into the popular collec- 
tion of tales entitled Li Romans des Sept Sages. But 
Chaucer's tale was probably drawn directly from Ovid, 
and certainly has no connection with this version last 
named. 

THE parson's tale 
In the life of the fourteenth century the Church 
played, for good and for evil, a part of the first impor- 
tance, so that one need not be surprised that of the 
nine and twenty gathered together at the inn in South- 
wark, eleven are connected in one Avay or another with 
the ecclesiastical organization. Surveying this delega- 
tion as a whole, one is forced to the conclusion that 
the English Church had fallen on evil days ; and this 
conclusion is strengthened by the appearance of other 
churchmen quite as unworthy as these in the tales 
themselves. Unfortunately, the concurrent testimony 
of such diverse observers as Gower, Langland, and 
Wiclif proves that Chaucer's picture is not overdrawn. 
Against such a background of corruption and unwor- 
thiness, the poor parson of a town stands out with singu- 
lar beauty, and the sympathetic portrait of him given 

1 See the article by Koeppel, in Herrig-'s Arckiv, 80. 44. 
^ Originals and Analogues, 437-4S0. 



THE PARSON'S TALE 285 

in the General Prologue is justly regarded as one of 
the loveliest bits of Chaucer's poetry. 

Often enough on the road to Canterbury the good 
priest must have been shocked by the words he had 
to hear ; but he knew how to keep his peace. He 
' ne maked him a spyced conscience.' Only once does 
he protest, when on the second day of the journey the 
Host turns to him and with an oath demands a tale. 
The Parson's mild rebuke calls forth from the Host a 
scornful answer : — 

' I smelle a loUer in the wind,' quod he. 

* How ! good men,' qxiod our hoste, 'herkneth ine; 

Abydeth for goddes digne passioun, 

For we shall han a predicacioun; 

This Idler heer wil prechen us somwhat.' 

But the Shipman, that stout defender of the estab- 
lished faith, throws himself into the breach ; the dan- 
ger of a ' predicacioun ' is for the present averted ; and 
the unpleasantness blows over. Not, however, till all the 
other pilgrims have told their tales, late in the after- 
noon of the last day's ride, does the Host again make 
requisition for the Parson's tale. This time the Par- 
son suffers his profanity to pass without rebuke. The 
Host's earlier fears of a ' predicacioun,' however, are 
fully realized. The Parson will tell no fable, either in 
rime or alliteration; his tale is to be ' moralitee and 
vertuous matere,' 

To shewe yow the wey, in this viage, 
Of thilko parfit glorious pilgrimage 
That highte Jerusalem celestial. 

The whole company sees the appropriatness of ending 
' in som vertuous sentence,' and the Parson is given 
free audience. 

Much as we may admire the beauty of the Parson's 
character as parish priest, we are heartily glad that we 



286 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

do not have to sit under his preaching of a Sunday. His 
sermon, or meditation, as he calls it, is interiniuably 
long, and for our modern taste at least, intolerably flull. 
It is full of excellent teaching, often expressed in tren- 
chant language ; but for elfectiveness as a whole, it is 
immeasurably inferior to the brilliant sermon of the 
miserable Pardoner. The theme of the discourse is Peni- 
tence ; but into its midst is introduced a digression on 
the seven deadly sins and their remedies, longer than 
all the rest of the sermon, which hopelessly destroys 
the unity and proportion of the whole. 

Of the source of the Parson s Tale Piofessor Skeat 
says : ^ 'It is now known that this Tale is little else 
Sources than an ada])tation (with alterations, omis- 
Authen- sions, and additions, as usual with Chaucer) 
ticity of a French treatise by Frere Lorens, entitled 

La Somme des Vices ct desVerUis, written in 1279.'* 
Until quite recently this statement was universally ac- 
cepted ; but we now know that the Par807i''s Tale and 
La Somme des Vices et des Vertus both go back to an 
earlier common original, the Sum,ma seu Tractatvs de 
Viciis of Guilielmus Peraldus, a Dominican Friar of 
the thirteenth century, while the main body of tlie tale 
which deals with penitence is from the Summa Casnum 
Pcenitentim of another Dominican of the same century, 
Raymund of Pennaforte.^ In just what versions these 
treatises reached Chaucer we do not yet know ; but, 

1 Oxford Chaucer, 3. 502. 

2 In the Chaucer Society's volume of Essays on Chaucer, pp. 503- 
610, may be found a minute comparison of the Parson's Tale and the 
Somme, by W. Eilers. 

2 The Sources of the Parson's Tale, by Miss Kate O. Petersen, Rad- 
clifFe Colleg^e Monooraphs, 12. Boston, 1901. Favorably reviewed by 
E. Kopppel, in Englische Sludien, oO. 404-467. Professor Liddell's ' A 
New Source of the Parson's Tale,' in the Furnivall Miscellany, 255-277, 
is DO longer important. 



THE PARSON'S TALE 287 

tliongli the Somme of Frere Lorens may have been 
consulted, it cannot have been his direct or even indi- 
rect source. Nor do we know whether the unfortunate 
piecing together of two distinct treatises is due to 
Cliaucer, or to his immediate original. 

So inartistic is this combination, that many critics, 
among them Ten Brink, have been unwilling to believe 
that the tale as preserved to us is Chaucer's authentic 
work. The whole digression on the seven deadly sins, 
and other lesser sections of the work, they regard as 
interpolations by another hand. But this method of 
higher criticism, by which everything offensive to the 
aesthetic taste of the critic is conveniently branded as 
interpolation, is fortunately going out of fashion ; and 
in this particular case there is no adequate ground for 
supposing that the tale is not in all essentials as Chau- 
cer wrote it.* 

It will be remembered that the Host accused the 
Parson of being a ' loller,' i. e. a lollard, a follower of 
Wiclif. Superficially, the portrait of the Parson in the 
General Prologue suggests the ' poor preachers ' who 
spread the reformer's teachings through the country- 
side ; and a serious attem])t has been made to prove 
that he was intended as a Wiclifite, and that Chaucer 
himself was in sympathy with the movement. Of course 
the Parson's ' meditation,' with its insistence on the 
necessity of auricular confession, is eminently orthodox ; 
and if we accept it as genuine, we must at once dis- 
miss the theory of his \Yiclifite sympathies. Apart ; 
from this objection, the theory never had any adequate 
evidence in its favor. As for the Host's playful charge, 
one may readily enough answer that it is quite in 

^ Professor Koeppel, in IIerri};''3 Archiv, ST. .13-54, lias shown tliat 
many quotations from the section on the seven deadly sins occur in 
Chaucer's other works, just as wn find similar quotations from Boa- 
thius and from the 2 a e of Melihens. 



288 THE POETRY OF CHAUCER 

accord with Chaucer's characteristic humor to have it 
suggested that the one thoroughly worthy ecclesiastic 
in the company Is a heretic.^ 

In the last paragraph of the ParsorCs Tale, under 
the caption ' Here taketh the makere of this book his 
The Re- Icve,' Is found a strange and sad leave-taking, 
tractation. jj^ which the poet beseeches ' mekely for the 
mercy of god, that ye preye for me, that Crist have 
mercy on me and foryeve me my giltes : — and namely, 
of my translacions and endytinges of worldly vanitees, 
the whiche I revoke In my retracciouns : as Is the book 
of Troilus ; The book also of Fame ; The book of the 
nynetene Ladies ; The book of the Duchesse ; The 
book of seint Valentynes day of the Parlement of 
Briddes ; The tales of Caunterbury, thilke that sounen 
into sinne.' The only works that he does not regret 
are the translation of Boethius, ' and other bokes of 
Legendes of seintes, and omelies, and moralitee, and 
devocioun.' All for which we prize Chaucer he would 
rather not have writ ! We should be glad to believe 
that these words are not authentic ; but, remembering 
Tolstoi and Ruskin, we dare not. The sincerity of the 
passage cannot be questioned. We must believe that 
In the sadness of his latter days the poet's conscience 
was seized upon by the tenets of a narrow creed, which 
in the days of his strength he had known how to trans- 
mute Into something better and truer. But into the 
sacredness of his soul we had better not pry too curi- 
ously. 

' So here is ended the book of the Tales of Caunter- 
bury, com])iled by Geffrey Chaucer, of whos soule Jesu 
Crist have mercy. Amen.' 

^ Those who wish to pursue this Wiclifite theory may read the essay 
on ' Chaucer a Wicliffite,' in Essays on Chancer, 227-292, by H. Simon. 



APPENDIX 



SUGGESTIONS FOR THE STUDY OF 
CPIAUCER 

The first question that presents itself to the student of 
Chaucer is that of editions of the poet's works. The more ad- 
vanced student must have access to Skeat's edition in six 
volumes,^ commonly known as The Oxford Chaucer, pub- 
lished in 1894. Though somewhat deficient in scholarly 
method, this edition contains the most satisfactory text of 
Chaucer's works in their entirety which has yet appeared, 
and in notes and introductions a vast store of valuable infor- 
mation. The intnuluctions, however, are already in many 
particulars antiquated. Skeat's text, with condensed glossary, 
and brief general introduction, but without explanatory 
notes, is also published in a single volume, called The Stu- 
dent's Cliaucer (Oxford University Press, 1900). This is the 
most satisfactory edition of Chaucer now available for the 
average reader. It is, everj'thing considered, preferable to 
the Globe edition, edited by Pollard, Heath, Liddell, and 
McCormiek (Macmillan, 1903). Professor F. N. Robinson of 
Harvard has now (1921) in preparation and nearly completed 
a single volume edition of Chaucer to be published in the 
Cambridge Poets Series (Houghton MifHin Company), 
which will undoubtedly supersede both the Globe edition and 
the Student's Chaucer of Skeat. The older editions of Chaucer 
have no value save to the book-collector or the special student 
of textual criticism, and should be avoided. 

For the student of Chaucer's language and verse the stand- 
ard work is Ten Brink's The Language and Metre of Chaucer 
(English translation of the second German edition by M. 

' A seventh voliime contains all the pieces which have in the past 
been erroneously included among Chaucer's works. 



292 APPENDIX 

Bentinck Smith, Macmillan, 1901).^ The less advanced stu- 
dent will find all that he needs clearly presented in Pro- 
fessor Samuel Moore's Historical Outlines of English Philol- 
ogy and Middle English Grarmnar (George Wahr, Ann Arbor, 
Michigan, 1919). This small volume contains an excellent 
account of Chaucerian pronunciation, with phonetic tran- 
scriptions. The best existing glossary is that in the Oxford 
Chaucer. Under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution, 
Professor J. S. P. Tatlock of Leland Stanford University is 
now completing a concordance to Chaucer originally under- 
taken by the late Professor Flugel. This work, when pub- 
lished, will be indispensable to serious students. 

For the life of Chaucer, about which we have but few signi- 
ficant details, the student may best use the article by J. W. 
Hales in the Dictionary of National Biography. The fullest 
presentation of the little we know is given in the Chaucer 
Society volume of Life Records of Chaucer (1900). Interesting 
light is thrown on one phase of the poet's career in Dr. J. R. 
Hulbert's University of Chicago dissertation, Chaucer's Offi- 
cial Life (1912). The most comprehensive study of the chro- 
nology of the poet's literary career is Professor Tatloek's 
Chaucer Society volume, The Development and Chronology of 
Chaucer's Works (1907). The author's conclusions have not, 
however, been accepted in their entirety by other scholars. 
Miss Caroline F. E. Spurgeon's Chaucer Society volumes, Five 
Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion (1914 and 
1918), and her earlier book, Chaucer devant la Critique en 
Angleterre et en France (Paris, 1911), form the starting-point 
for any study of Chaucer's influence on later literature. 

The great mass of Chaucerian scholarship is contained in the 
voluminous publications of the Chaucer Society (London), 
in the various scholarly journals, English, American, and 
German, and in various university series of doctoral disserta- 
tions. This material has been made accessible by the admir- 

' A third edition of the German work, revised by Eduard Eckhardt 
has just appeared (Leipzig, Tauchnitz, 1920). The advanced student 
will also consult Die Sprachlichen Eigentiimlichkeiten der wichtigeren 
Chaucer-Handschriftcn und die Sprache Chancers, by Dr. Friedrich 
Wild {Wiener Beitrage, xliv, Vienna and Leipzig, 1915). 



APPENDIX 293 

able hibliography compiled by Miss E. P. Hammond, Chaucer, 
a Bibliographical Mamial (Macmillan, 1908). This volume is 
indispensable to advanced students. It is supplemented, par- 
ticularly in the case of matter published since 1907, by Pro- 
fessor J. E. AVells's Manual of the Writings in Middle English 
(Yale University Press, 1916), and the 'First Supplement' to 
this work (1919). 

Among more jxipular discussions of Chaucer and his poetry 
may be mentioned the study by Professor E. Legouis of the 
Sorbonne, Gcoffroy Chaucer (Paris, 1910; English translation, 
London and New York, 1913), and Professor Kittredge's de- 
lightful and illuminating volume of lectures entitled Chaucer 
and his Poetry (Harvard University Press, 1915). Mr. G. G. 
Coulton's Chaucer and his England (Putnam's, 1908) contains 
interesting matter on the daily life of Chaucer's England. Pro- 
fessor T. R. Loimsbury's three volumes of Studies in Chaucer 
(Harper's, 189'2) and the pages devoted to Chaucer in Tea 
Brink's Ilistori/ of English Literature, Vol. ii. Part I, (Holt, 
1893), contain much that is still of value. 



NOTES AND REVISIONS 

(In this appendix will be found references to important books 
and articles which have been published since the first edition 
of this book appeared in 1906, and a few corrections and addi- 
tions to its text, which could not conveniently be incorporated 
in the body of the volume. It is not intended that the bibliog- 
raphy of recent books and articles should be complete. For 
example, no notice is taken of such unfounded conjectures as 
those contained in Mr. Victor Langhans's extensive volume, 
Vntersuchungen zu Chaucer, Halle, 1918.) 

Page 59. Professor W. O. Sypherd has pointed out interest- 
ing similarities between the Book of the Duchess and the anony- 
mous fourteenth-century French poem, Le Songe Vert: 
Modern Language Notes, 24. 46-47 (1909). See also Professor 
Kittredge's article on ' Guillaunie de Machaut and the Book 
of the Duchess,' Publications of the Modern Language Associa- 
tion, 30. 1-24 (1915). 

Page 64. It was formerly believed that the two eagles 'of 
lower kinde' in the Parliament of Fowls stood for William of 
Bavaria and Frederick of Meissen; but Professor O. F. Emer- 
son, Modern Philology, 8. 45-62 (1910), and Professor Samuel 
Moore, Modern Language Notes, 26. 8-12 (1911), have shown 
that it is more probable that the third eagle represents 
Charles VI of France, and the second, Frederick of Meissen. 
In 1913 Professor J. M. Manly, Studien zur englischen Philolo- 
gie, ed. Morsbach, 50. 279-290, argued that the poem is merely 
a variation of the conventional demande d' amours, where a 
hypothetical case of love-casuistry is propounded and left for 
solution to the wits of readers or auditors. He declines to see 
in it any allusion to the marriage of Richard and Anne, or to 
admit the necessity of any personal allegory. In the following 
year Professor Emerson, Joxirnal of English and Germanic 
Philology, 13. 560-582, replied with new evidence in support 



APPENDIX 295 

of his position. In 1920 Miss Edith Rickert, Modern Philol- 
ogy, 18. l-"29, argued that the demande d'amours of Chaucer's 
poem was intended to conipHnient not Queen Anne, but the 
Lady FhiUppa of Lancaster, eldest daughter of John of Gaunt. 
In this interpretation tlie tiiree suitor eagles become the lady's 
cousin. King Richard II, whom, as Froissart declares, Duke 
John wish<'d to annex as son-in-law, ^^ illiarn of Ba'.aria, and 
John of Blois, all of whom were possible suitors for the lady in 
the year 1381. 

The arguments are too complex for summary and criticism 
here. The present writer can only state his opinion that the 
demande d'amours of the Parliament of Fowls seems clearly 
intended as an allegory of some actual courtship, and that 
Miss Rickert's interpretation involves more serious inconsis- 
tencies than those which she and Professor Manly have 
pointed out in the theory which identifies the 'formel egle' 
with the Lady Anne of Bohemia. 

Page C6, line 1. The present writer now believes that the 
composition of the Knight's Tale falls two or three years later 
than that of the Parliament of Fowls. Cf. p. 168. 

Page 66, line 8. The De Plandu NaturcB may be read in the 
English translatic; of D. M. Moffat, Yale Studies in English, 
vol. 36 (1908). 

Page 68. Dr. Edgar F. Shannon, Publications of the Modern 
Language Association, 27. 461-485 (1912), has pointed out re- 
semblances of a general character between Anelida and 
Arcite anfl the Heroides of Ovid. In the same article he has 
shown that the A mores of Ovid were sometimes referred to by 
media3val scholars under the title 'Corinna' — the name of 
Ovid's mistress in whose honor they are written. He suggests 
that this is the explanation of Chaucer's mysterious ' Corinne.' 
Unfortunately, Dr. Shannon has been able to find but one 
possible parallel between Anelida and the Amoves, and that of 
a sort that might easily be fortuitous. 

In Publications of the Modern Language Association, 36. 186- 
222 (1921), Professor Frederick Tupper has argued that the 
story of Anelida and Arcite was intended to shadow forth the 
events of an unhappy marriage in one of the noble families of 



296 APPENDIX 

Ireland. Anelida, the 'quene of Ermony,' he identifies with the 
young countess of Ormonde. The name Ormonde was com- 
monly represented in contemporary Latin charters as 'Ermonie '; 
and the maiden name of the countess was Anne Welle, while her 
husband, the earl, was on his mother's side a d'Arcy. The re- 
semblance of these names to Anelida and Arcite, when taken 
in conjunction with the equivalence of Ormonde and Ermony, 
constitutes a considerable presumption in favor of Tupper's 
theory; but there is no positive evidence in its support. The 
only reason for believing that the marriage in question was 
an unhappy one is the existence of two illegitimate sons of 
the Earl of Ormonde, who may perfectly well have antedated 
his marriage to Anne Welle. In the poem, moreover, Arcite's 
new love never granted him any grace (lines 188, 189). Pro- 
fessor Tapper suggests a number of further identifications, 
such as that of Theseus with Lionel, Duke of Clarence, which 
are much less plausible. 

Miss M. Fabin, Modern Language Notes, 34. 266-272, 
argues that Anelida is indebted to Le Lai de la Souscie of 
Machaut. 

Page 69, line 7. Cf. note on page 6, line 1, above. 

Page 69, line 24. For a further account of the troubles of 
the mediaeval author with his copyists, see the article by R. K. 
Root, 'Publication before Printing,' Publications of the 
Modern Language Association, 28. 417-431 (1913). See also 
E. P. Kuhl's 'A Note on Chaucer's Adam,' Modern Lan- 
guage Notes, 29. 263-264 (1914). 

Page 72, line 13. See the article by J. L. Lowes, 'The 
Chaucerian "Mercilcs Beaute" and three poems of Des- 
champs's,' Modern Language Review, 5. 33-39 (1910). 

Page 73. We now know, thanks to the brilliant discovery of 
Miss Edith Rickert, Modern Philology, 11. 209-225 (1913), 
that the balade. Truth, is addressed to Chaucer's friend. Sir 
Philip la Vache. The word 'vache' in the envoy should, 
therefore, be printed with a capital V. La Vache was son-in- 
law to Chaucer's friend. Sir Lewis Clifford. Miss Rickert has 
recorded the main facts of his career. 

Page 76. In Modern Language Notes, 27. 45-48 (1912), 



APPENDIX 297 

Professor J. L. Lowes discusses the reference in the Envoy to 
Bitlton to captivity in Frisia, and suggests that the pocn: 
might have boon written at any time between 1393 and 1396. 
Professor Kittredge, Modern Language Notes, 24. 14-15 (1909) 
cites from Deschamps some interesting parallels in dispraise 
of marriage. 

Page 8G. Professor Kittredge has suggested. Modern Phi- 
lology, 14. 129-134 (1917), that 'litel Lowis' may have been 
the son of Chaucer's friend. Sir Lewis Clifford, and the 'son' 
of the poet only by affectionate adoption. 

Page 151. The closest parallel to the framework of the 
Canterhiry Tales is furnished by the prose Novelle of Giovanni 
Sercambi of Lucca written some time later than 1374. In this 
collection, the tales, though narrated by a single sp>eaker, are 
addressed to a group of travelers on a journey through Italy. 
Brief interludes describe the doings of the company on the way. 
There is a 'president' who exercises a function somewhat anal- 
ogous to that of Chaucer's Host. It is possible that Chaucer 
may have known Sercambi's work; but his debt to it, if any, is 
of a very general nature. He does not seem to have utilized 
any of the individual talcs of the collection. The Novelle have 
survived only in a single manuscript, which has never been 
printed in its entirety. The best discussion of the matter is 
Professor Karl Young's essay, 'The Plan of the Canterbury 
Tales,' Kittredge Anniversary Papers, pp. 405-417 (1913). 
The first scholar to call attention to the parallel was H. B. 
Hinckley in his Notes on Chaucer (Northampton, Mass., 
1907). 

Page 152. The student who wishes to venture Into the 
tangled problem of the order of the groups of the Canterbury 
Tales will do well to begin with Miss E. P. Hammond's dis- 
cussion, Chaucer, a Bibliographical Manual, pp. 158-172, 
241-2G4. It must be remembered that the unity of Group B, 
as adopted by Furnivall for the Chaucer Society and observed 
in modern editions, rests on the authority of a single and other- 
wise unreliable manuscript. This manuscript (Selden B 14 of 
the Bodleian Library) is the only one which reads 'Shipman' 
in line B 1179. Instead, we find the word 'Squier' in all but 



298 APPENDIX 

one of the remaining manuscripts which contain this hnk; in 
that the word 'Sompnour' is substituted. The Selden manu- 
script is the only one in which the Skijiman's Tale follows im- 
mediately the Man cf Law's Tale. In the remaining manu- 
scripts the Man of Law is followed by the Squire or bj' the 
Wife of Bath. The link which in Skcat's edition is called the 
*Slii])man's Prologue' should instead be called the 'Man of 
Law's Epilogue.' Scholars to-day consider the Ma)i of Law's 
Tale with its introductory lints and this epilogue as one group, 
which they designate as B ^ The group which begins with the 
Shipman's Tale and ends with the Nun's Priest's epilogue is 
designated B^ 

The position assigned bj^ Furnivall to C immediately after 
B^ is entirely arbitrary'. In all existing manuscripts except 
Selden B 14, where it is found between G and H, it immedi- 
ately precedes B^. Professor Samuel Moore, P^iblications of the 
Modern Language Association, 30. 110-123 (1915), has accord- 
ingly argued that the proi>er order is A, B^ C, B", D, etc. 
This seems more probable than the order A, C, B\ B^ D, 
urged by G. Shipley in Modern Language Notes, 10. 200-279 
(1895). 

\^'hen Chaucer died, the Canterbury Tales were still un- 
finished. It seems clear that the pile of manuscript which he 
left gave no certain indication of the order in which he in- 
tended to incorporate the various fragments into a unified 
whole. Perhaps he himself had had no settled intention in the 
matter. Various scribes tried in various ways to arrange the 
sequence; and the result was the discord which now exists in 
the surviving manuscripts. The modern editor must similarly 
do the best he can to arrive at an arrangement which, if not 
Chaucer's own, shall in its avoidance of inconsistencies be one 
which Chaucer might have approved. lie will consider i)ri- 
marily the geographical allusions in the various fragments 
and the references from one fragment to another, and will 
consider only secondarily the order presented in the existing 
manuscripts. From this point of view the order devised by 
Furnivall and adopted by Skeat in his edition remains a 
reasonably satisfactory solution; even though we grant, as 



APPENDIX 290 

seems probable, that Chaucer had no hand in the Unking to- 
gether of B^ and B% and that he thought of C as preceding B^ 

Skeat's Chaucer Society volume. The Evolution of the 
Canterbury Tales (1907), confuses rather than clarifies the 
problem. 

Paije 173. See the discussion of the Miller and the Reeve by 
Dr. W. C. Curry, Pvhlications of the Modern Language Associ- 
rtion, 33. 189-209 (1920). 

Page 175. For a parallel to Chaucer's apology for his inde- 
cent tales, see the article by R. K. Root, 'Chaucer and the 
Decameron,' Englische Studien, 44. 1-7 (1911). 

Page 191. For a full and very interesting discussion of the 
Prioress's Tale and of the various versions of the story in 
mediEeval literature, see Professor Carleton Brown's Chaucer 
Society volume, A Stvdy of the Miracle of Our Lady told by 
Chaucer's Prioress (1910). 

Page 223. See Dr. W. C. Curry's interesting article, 'The 
Secret of Chaucer's Pardoner,' Journal of English and Ger- 
manic Philology, 18. 593-GOC (1919). 

Page 253. On the Clerk of O.xford, see the article bj^ Profes- 
sor H. S. V. Jones in Publications of the Modern Language As- 
sociation, 27. 106-115 (1912). 

Page 255. Dr. W. E. Farnham has argued. Modern Lan- 
guage Notes, 33. 198-203 (1913), that Chaucer had access to 
the Italian version of Griselda as well as to Petrarch's Latin. 
Professor Cook has suggested. Romanic Review, 8. 210 (1917), 
that Chaucer consulted a French translation of Boccac- 
cio's tale. 

Page 270. A little further light has been thrown on the 
sources of the Squire's Tale by Professor H. S. V. Jones in 
Publications of the Modern Language Association, 20. 34G-359 
(1905), and by Professor J. L. Lowes in Washington Univer- 
sity Studies, Vol. I, Part II, pp. 3-18 (St. Louis, 1913). 

Page 273. The fidelity of the Franklin's Tale to its Breton 
setting is admirably discussed by Professor J. S. P. Tatlock in 
his Chaucer Society volume. The Scene of the FranlcUn's Tale 
Visited (1914). Mr. Tatlock believes that Chaucer has with 
deliberate art given to a story derived from other sources — 



300 APPENDIX 

including the Filocolo of Boccaccio — the character of a 
Breton lay. See also the article by J. L. Lowes, 'The Frank- 
lin's Tale, the Teseide, and the Filocolo,' Modern Philologyy 
15. 689-728 (1918). Professor Lowes has shown conclusively 
that in numerous passages of the FranklirCs Tale Chaucer has 
drawn on the Teseide of Boccaccio. He argues also for Chau- 
cer's debt to the Filocolo. In spite of important differences, 
the Franklin's Tale is closer to the version in the Filocolo than 
to any other known version of the story; and there is no 
reason why Chaucer may not have known this work of 
Boccaccio. The facts can, however, be equally well ex- 
plained on the assumption of a lost fabliau which was the 
ultimate common source of the Italian and the English tales. 

See also Professor Tatlock's article, 'Astrology and Magic in 
Chaucer's Franklin's Tale,' Kittredge Anniversary Papers, pp. 
339-3o0 (Boston, 1913), and Professor W. M. Hart's essay on 
the narrative art of the Franklin's Tale and its relation to the 
Breton lay in Haverford Essays, pp. 185-234 (Haverford, Pa., 
1909). 

Page 277. The student who wishes to understand the type 
of composition, of which the Second Nun's legend of St. 
Cecilia is an example, should consult Professor G. H. Gerould's 
scholarly book. Saints' Legends (Boston and New York, 1916), 
The Second Nun's Tale is discussed on pages 239-244. See 
also Professor Carleton Brown's 'The Prologue of Chaucer's 
"Lyf of Seint Cecile," ' Modern Philology, 9. 1-16 (1911), and 
the papers by Professor J. L. Lowes in Publications of the 
Modern Language Association, 26. 315-323 (1911) and 29. 
129-133 (1914). 

Page 288. See the article on 'Chaucer's Retractations,* by 
Professor J. S. P. Tatlock, in Publications of the Modem 
Language Association, 28. 521-529 (1913). 



INDEX 



INDEX 



A. B. C. 57, 58, 207. 

Adam, Worch unto, 69, 70. 84, 
297, 

Against Women Unconstant, 78. 

Alanus de Insulis, GG, 129, 296. 

Albertauo of Brescia, 203, 284. 

Alcestis, 140-144. 

Alchemy, 23, 25, 281-283. 

Alma Redcmploris, 198. 

Alphonsus of Lincoln, 194-196. 

Amorous Complaint, 79. 

Andreas Capellanus, 103. 

Anclida and Arcilc, 68, 69, 296, 
297. 

Anne, Queen of England, 63, 64, 
89, 141-144, 107, 29.1, 296. 

Arabian Nights, 151, 2G9, 270. 

Astrolabe, 23, 85, 86. 298. 

Astrology, Chaucer's attitude to- 
wards, 22, 24. 

Astronomy, Chaucer's interest 
in, 22. 

Balade of Complaint, 79. 

Beaumont and f^Ietcher, 274. 

Benoit de Sainte-More, 94-96, 97, 
100. 

Beowulf, SO. 

Beri/n, Tale of, 158, 159. 

Boccaccio, 17, 18, 20, 21, 32, 65, 
68. 88, 90, 96-98, 103, 125, 136, 
137, 142, 152, 163, 168, 175, 
188, 205, 207, 228, 243, 254, 
2.35, 263, 274, 300, 301. 

Boethius, 17, 19, 46, 70, 71, 73, 
74, 75. 80-85, 90, 117, 125, 127, 
103, 207. 

Bool: of the Duchess, 15, 18, 37, 38, 
58, 59-63, 66, 68, 295. 

Buktoa, 76, 77, 298. 



Canon s Yeoman's Tale, 23, 280- 

283. 
Canterbury Tales, 18, 135, 151- 

160, 298-300. 
Cento Novelle AnticJie, 225-227. 
Chretien de Troyes, 102. 
Christianity, Chaucer's attitude 

towards, 26. 
Chronology of Chaucer's writings, 

15-19, 292. 
Cicero, 65, 129. 
Claudian, 65. 
Clerk's Tale, 37, 148, 239, 253- 

262, 300. 
Clifford, Sir Lewis, 138, 298. 
Coleridge, 208. 
Complaint of Mars, 63, 77. 
Complaint of Venus, 77, 
Complaint to his Empty Purse, 78. 
Complaint to his Lady, 68, 
Complaint to Pity, 58, 59. 
Cook's Tale, 179," ISO. 
'Corinne,' 68, 69, 296. 
Courtly love, 102-105, 112, 115- 

117, 120. 
Criseyde, 105-114, 187. 

Dante, 3, 4, 17, 35, 65, 68, 104, 

129, 207, 243, 278. 
Dares Phrygius, 93-95, 100, 101. 
Decameron, 152, 175, 188, 228, 

254, 2G3, 274, 300. 
Deschamps. 138, 139, 141, 144, 

239, 298. 
Dictys Cretensis, 91-93, 95, 100, 

101. 
Diomede, 11,3, 114. 
Dramatic power of Chaucer, 38, 

122, 123. 
Dry den, 100 n, 173. 



304 



INDEX 



Envoy to Buhton, 76, 77. 
Envoy to Scogan, 75, 76. 

Faerie Qjieene, 35, 207. 

Filocolo, 99, 274, 301. 

Filostrato, 96-100, 123, 142. 

Fletcher, 172, 173, 274. 

Florus, 136. 

Former Age, 38, 70, 71, 84. 

Fortune, 71, 84. 

Franklins Tale, 24, 42, 148, 239, 

271-277, 300, 301. 
Friar, 48. 

Friar's Tale, 244-249. 
Froissart, 64, 76, 129, 138, 139. 

Gautier de Coincy, 194. 

Gentilesse, 25, 38, 74, 243. 

Gentilesse, 240 n, 243. 

Golden Legend, 278. 

Gower, 11, 13, 26, 33, 88, 124, 

137, 151, 183, 184, 240, 284. 
Graunsoun, Otes de, 77. 
Groups of Canterbury Tales, 152- 

154, 298-300. 
Guido delle Colonne, 94-96, 100, 

101, 137, 207. 
Guilielmus Peraldus, 286. 
Guillaume de Deguilleville, 57. 
Guillaume de Lorris, 16, 45-50. 
Guillaume de Machaut, 60, 61, 

78, 138, 295, 297. 

Herolt, John, 246, 247. 
Homer, 91, 93, 95, 101. 
Horace, 101. 
House of Fame, 18, 23, 30, 37, 101, 

128-134, 140. 
Hugh of Lincoln, 193. 
Humor of Chaucer, 39. 
Hunt, Leigh, 267. 
Hyginus, 137. 

Irony, 40, 99, 118, 121, 227. 



Jacobus a Voragine, 278. 

Jakes de Basiu, 250. 

Jean de Meun, 16, 20 46-50, 81, 

84. 220, 232. 
Jerome, St., 232. 
Jews, mediaeval attitude toward' 

191-194. 
John of Gaunt, 59, 68. 
Joseph of Exeter, 100. ; 

Keats, 268, 269. 

Kipling, 225. 

Knight's Tale, 18, 23, 24, 27, 36, 

37, 39, 42, 66, 69, 150, 163-173, 

209, 296. 

Lack of Steadfastness, 74, 75. 

Langland, 11, 12, 26, 163, 

La Vache, Sir Philip, 297. 

Legenda Aurea, 278. 

Legend of Cleopatra, 150. 

Legend of Dido, 25, 150. 

Legend of Good Women, 18, 26, 34, 

135-150, 151, 182, 219. . 
Legend of Thisbe, 150. 
Le Songe Vert, 295. 
Livy, 137, 220. 
'Lollius,' 100-102. 
Lorens, Frere, 286, 287. 
Lowell, 37, 62, 251. 
Lydgate, 141, 206. 

Machaut, 60, 61, 78, 138, 295. 

297. 
Macrobius, 65, 129. 
Manciple's Tale, 283, 284. 
Man of Law's Tale, 38, 148, 181- 

187, 238. 
Marco Polo, 270. 
Marie de Champagne, 103. 
Marie de France, 102, 210, 273. 
Marriage, 77, 102, 103, 233-236, 

238-240, 263, 275, 298. 
Martianus Capella, 129. 
Massuccio di Salerno, 174. 



~-v:.v 



INDEX 



305 



Medievalism and the Renais- 
sance, 3-7. 

Melibens, Tale of, 203. 

Merchant's Tale, £39. 262-266. 

Merciless Beauty, 72, 297. 

Messahala, 86. 

Miller, 300. 

Miller's Tale, 36, 39. 173-179. 

Milton, 266, 267, 269. 

Monk's Tale, 18, 33, 151, 203- 
207. 

Narrative art. 121-123, 177-179. 
Nature, Chaucer's love of, 147- 

149. 
Nun's Priest's Tale, 39, 68, 207- 

218. 

Originality of Chaucer, 21. 
Orosius, 136. 
Otes de Graunsoun. 77. 
Ovid, 20, 61, 97, 127, 129, 136, 
137. 207, 284, 296. 

'Palamon and Arcite,' 167, 168. 

Pandarus, 118-121. 

Papacy, England and the, 9-11. 

Pardoner, 20, 48, 223, 224, 300. 

Pardoner's Tale, 36, 40, 222-231. 

Parliament of Fowls, 18, 39, 63- 
68, 72. 140, 168, 29.5. 296. 

Parsons Tale, 284-288. 

Pathos of Chaucer, 40. 

Pearl, 12. 

Peasant's Revolt, 31, 167. 

Petrarch, 17, 42, 69, 129, 132, 243, 
254, 2J5, 2.59; supposed meet- 
ing with Chaucer, 25-5-257. 

Physicians Tale, 219-222. 

Pindarns Thebanus, 91. 

Plutarch, 136. 

Pope, 127, 264. 

Predestination, 24, 90, 117, 125, 
126, 218. 

Prioress, 161, 190, 191. 



Prioress's Tale, 38, 39, 190-198, 

300. 
Proces of the Sevyn Sages, 152, 
Prologue, 27. 145, 160-163. 
Protestantism, 5. 
Proverbs, 78. 

Radicalism of Chaucer, 25. 

Realism, 140, 168 n. 

Reeve, 300. 

Reeves Tale, 39, 173-179. 

Reinecke Fucks, 211, 212, 

Rembrandt, 160. 

Renaissance contrasted with Me- 

disevalism, 3-7. 
Retractation, 288, 301. 
Reynard the Foot, 210. 
Roman de Renart, 211, 212, 
Roman de la Rose, 45-51, 59, 8Q, 

102, 129, 137, 140, 220-222, 

232. 243. 
Roman de Troie, 94-97. 
Romans des Sept Sages, 284. 
Romaunt of the Rose, 15, 45-56, 

65. 
Romulus, 210. 
RoscTnound, To, 72, 73. 

St. Cecilia, 277-280. 

Second Nun's Tale, 18, 277-280, 

301. 
Scholarship of Chaucer, 32. 
Scogan, 76. 
Sercambi, 298. 
Shakespeare, 4, 97, 99, 100. 
Shipman's Tale, 187-190, 238, 

299. 
Simeon Metaphrastes, 279. 
Sir Gawayne, 12. 
Sir Thopas, 30, 34, 39, 199-203. 
Skepticism of Chaucer, 24. 
Socrates, 192. 

Somninm Scipionis, 65, 66, 129. 
Spenser, 242. 267. 
Squire's Tale, 266-270, 300.. 



\ 



306 



INDEX 



Statius, 68, 106, 163. 
Strode, 124. 
Style of Chaucer, 41. 
Summoner's Tale, 23, 39, 240- 
252. 

Teseide, 65, 68, 69, 90, 125, 163- 

166, 301. 
Theophrastus, 232. 
Thomas of Monmouth, 193. 
Tragedy, 40, 125, 205. 
Trivet, Nicholas, 85, 182-184. 
Troilus, 115-118. 
Troilus and Criseyde, 17, 18, 38, 

40, 56, 84, 87-127, 168. 
Troy Story, 90-97. 
Truth, 29, 30, 38, 73, 74, 84, 297. 
Two Noble Kinsmen, 172. 173. 



Usk, Thomas, 90. 

Valerius, 233. 

Versification of Chaucer, 34. 

Virgil, 129, 131, 133. 

Warton, 267, 269. 

Whitfield, 231. 

Wiclif, 13, 287. 

Wife of Bath, 20, 48, 161, 235- 

238. 
Wife of Bath's Prologue, 231-238. 
Wife of Bath's Tale, 25, 39, 74, 

238-2441 
William of Norwich, 192, 193. 
Womanly Noblesse, 79. 
Words unto Adam, 69, 70, 84, 

297. 



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